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HOLY    CROSS 


A    HISTORY    OF    THE    INVENTION,    PRESERVATION,    AND    DISAPPEARANCE 
OF    THE    WOOD    KNOWN    AS 


THE    TRUE    CROSS 


/   BY 

W.  C.^PRIME,   LL.D. 


NEW    YORK 

ANSON    D.   F.   RANDOLPH   &   COMPANY 

38  WEST  TWENTY-THIRD  STREET. 


COPYRIGHT,  1877,  BT 
Anson  D.  F.  Randolph  &  Company 


Cross  of  shame,  yet  tree  of  glory 
Round  thee  winds  the  one  great  story 

Of  this  ever  changing  earth  : 
Center  of  the  true  and  holy, 
Grave  of  human  sin  and  folly. 
Womb  of  Nature's  second  birth  ! 

Rev.  Horatius  Bonar,  1866. 

When  I  survey  the  wondrous  Cross 
On  which  the  Prince  of  Glory  died. 

My  richest  gain  I  count  but  loss, 
And  pour  contempt  on  all  my  pride. 
Rev.  Isaac  Watts,  1709. 

The  balm  of  life,  the  cure  of  woe, 

The  measure  and  the  pledge  of  love  ; 

The  sinner's  refuge  here  below. 

The  angel's  theme  in  heaven  above. 
Rev.  Thomas  Kelly,  1820. 

In  the  cross  of  Christ  I  glory, 
Towering  o'er  the  wrecks  of  time  ; 

All  the  light  of  sacred  story 

Gathers  round  its  head  sublime. 

Sir  John  Bowring,  1825, 

Blest  Cross  I  Blest  Sepulchre  !  blest  rather  be 
The  man  that  there  was  put  to  shame  for  me. 
John  Bunyan,  1660, 

(3) 


P  R  E  FA  CE. 


This  book  is  an  attempt  to  sketch  the  history  of  the 
wood  which  was  known  for  many  centuries  as  the  True 
Cross,  and  to  indicate  the  various  influences,  direct  and 
indirect,  which  proceeded  from  it,  and  affected  the  religious 
and  political  destinies  of  the  world.  It  is  but  a  sketch, 
for  the  history  fully  written  out  would  be  a  history  of 
Europe  and  Asia  during  the  period  from  a.d.  326  to  our 
own  times. 

I  have  tried  to  compile  from  extant  authorities  the  story 
of  the  finding  of  the  wood  by  the  Empress  Helena,  the 
remarkable  power  it  exerted  on  men  and  nations,  its  ad- 
ventures while  in  Christian  hands,  and  its  final  disappear- 
ance. 

Brief  and  very  partial  and  prejudiced  accounts  have 
been  heretofore  written,  by  those  who  believed  in  the 
verity  of  the  wood  as  the  cross  on  which  the  Lord  died, 
and  equally  partial  and  prejudiced  accounts  have  been 
written  by  those  who  regarded  its  story  as  one  of  impos- 
ture and  deceit  from  beginning  to  end. 

Very  Cross  or  False  Cross,  v/hichever  it  was,  I  am  con- 
fident no  intelligent  person  will  doubt,  after  reading  what 
I  have  gathered,  that  this  wood  well  deserves  to  be  the 
subject  of  an  abler  historian,  and  that  its  history  is  worthy 
of  being  written  in  many  volumes.     It  was  for  so  many 

(5) 


6  PREFACP 

centuries  the  heart  of  the  Christian  world,  and  it  had  such 
mighty  influence  on  Church  and  on  kingdoms,  that  the 
omission  of  it  in  writing  the  history  of  European  civiliza- 
tion, and  of  European  governments,  would  be  like  omit- 
ting the  mention  of  steam  in  describing  the  engines  which 
drive  great  vessels  with  precious  loads  of  passengers  and 
goods,  across  oceans.  Its  direct  influence,  in  various 
ways,  is  visible  to  all  who  will  study  the  history,  but  its 
invisible  influence  in  moulding  the  minds  of  kings  and 
people,  clergy  and  laity,  can  only  here  and  there  be 
guessed  at.  Enough  is  known  to  show  that  this  influence 
controlled  and  guided  the  mind  of  Europe,  and  is  of  vast 
account  in  studying  the  history  of  literature  and  art. 

Upon  the  question  of  the  verity  of  the  wood  as  the  True 
Cross,  I  have  endeavored  to  give,  with  impartiality,  the 
arguments  on  both  sides,  confessing  my  own  want  of  faith. 

On  the  question  of  the  locality  of  the  place  of  the  cruci- 
fixion as  marked  by  the  Empress  Helena,  I  have  given  my 
own  opinions,  the  result  of  careful  examination  of  the 
topography  of  Jerusalem  in  different  visits,  and  careful 
study  of  all  known  authorities.  Throughout,  I  have  tried 
to  relate  the  facts  of  history,  and  where  any  statement  de- 
pends on  tradition,  have  so  given  it.  Instead  of  encum- 
bering the  pages  with  references  to  authorities  in  foot- 
notes, I  refer  the  reader,  who  desires  to  pursue  the  sub- 
ject, to  the  following,  which,  besides  many  others,  have 
been  more  or  less  used  in  preparing  this  account. 

Eusebius.     Vita  Constantini.    Lips  ,  1830. 

Willermi  Tyrensis  Archiep.   Hist  ,  and   the  various  chronicles, 

etc.,  contained  in  the  Gesta  Dei   per  Francos,  etc.,  Hanov. 

x6ii. 


PREFACE.  7 

Geoffrey  de  Vinsauf ;  Itinerary  of  Richard,  etc.  ;  in  Chronicles 
of  the  Crusades.     London,  1S48. 

Socrates  ;  Theodoret  ;  Sozomen  ;  Ambrose  (de  ob.  Theod.  & 
Patrol.)  ;  Rufinus  ;  Sulpicius  Severus  ;  Beda  (Ven.) ;  Chrysos- 
tom  ;  Gregory  of  Tours  ;  Cyril  of  Alexandria  ;  Paulinus  of 
Nola,  and  other  historians  and  fathers  of  the  Church,  and  Latin 
and  Greek  authors  specially  referred  to  in  the  text. 

Bollandus  ;  Acta  Sanctorum.     Antwerp,  et  al.  loc,  1643,  etc. 

Bohadini  F.  Sjeddadi ;  Vita  et  Res  gestae  Sultani  Almalichi 
Alnasiri  Saladini,  etc.     Arab,  et  Lat.     Lugd.  Bat.,  1732. 

Abulfeda  ;  Excerpta,  etc.,  in  same  volume. 

Angelo  Rocca  Camerte  ;  De  particula  ex  pretioso  et  viv.  ligno 
sac.  crucis,  etc.     Rome,  1609. 

Lipsius;  De  Cruce.     Antwerp,  1594. 

Bosius  ;  de  cruce  triumphale,  etc.     Antwerp,  1619. 

Mone.  Lateinische  Hymnen,  etc.,  3  vols.  Freiburg  in  Breis 
gau,  1854.  (In  vol.  I,  many  hymns,  etc.,  relating  to  the  sub- 
ject). 

Neale,  Rev.  J.  M.  Mediaeval  Hymns  and  Sequences,  trans- 
lated.    London,  1851. 

Wilkinson.  Manners  and  Customs  of  the  Ancient  Egyptians, 
5  vols,     London,  1847.     (See  vol.  5,  on  the  Tau). 

Notes  and  Queries.  London,  1849-1876  \passim.  (Many  interest- 
ing and  valuable  notes  on  the  subject  have  from  time  to  time 
appeared  in  N.  and  Q.  And  besides  these  authorities,  a  large 
number  of  modern  historians  and  travelers  have  contributed  to 
the  literature  of  the  subject) 


HOLY    CROSS 


INTRODUCTORY. 


nPHIS  monograph  is  but  an  outline  sketch  of  a 
-'•  history  which,  if  written  out,  would  be  the  his- 
tory of  many  nations,  many  wars,  and,  what  never 
will  be  written  except  in  the  books  to  be  opened 
when  all  our  books  are  gone  —  the  history  of  the 
lives,  the  passions,  the  sins  and  sorrows,  the  peni- 
tence and  pardon  of  many  human  souls.  It  is  only 
the  story  of  two  or  three  pieces  of  old  wood  ;  pieces 
of  wood  which  the  blind,  unquestioning  faith  of  men 
made  the  wood  of  the  cross  on  which  their  Saviour 
died. 

The  ardor  of  religious  controversy  leads  many  now 
to  look  on  that  faith  with  contempt.  No  faith  is 
contemptible.  Faith  is  worthy  of  more  or  less 
respect,  even  if  it  seem  to  be  faith  in  a  falsehood.  For 
faith  is  a  power.     Faith  is  what  leads  to  work  ard 

(q) 


10  FAITH. 

produces  results.  Faith  in  a  lie  will  sometimes 
accomplish  more  than  reason  in  support  of  truth. 
Faith  must  not  be  despised.  I  have  thought  that 
the  history  of  those  pieces  of  wood  in  which  men 
had  such  faith  that  they  moved  empires,  might  do 
some  good  in  these  days  when  blind  faith  is  ridiculed, 
and  men  are  as  intolerant  of  other  men's  faith  as 
they  ever  were  in  any  age. 

If  it  will  help  the  reader  to  dismiss  prejudice  from 
his  mind  in  reading  the  story,  I  will,  at  the  outset, 
say  that  I  have  never  found  reasonable  grounds  suf- 
ficient for  the  faith  whose  results  I  describe,  and 
therefore  I  do  not  believe  that  these  fragments  of 
wood  were  the  very  cross  ;  but  I  am  bound  to  add 
that  there  is  nothing  to  prove  the  contrary.  They 
may  have  been  so.  Whether  they  were  or  were  not 
the  wood  men  believed  them  to  be,  is  not  a  question 
in  this  story,  and  has  no  importance  in  reference  to 
its  object,  which  is  not  so  much  to  give  the  history 
itself,  as  to  furnish  an  illustration  of  the  effect  of 
faith  in  anything  on  the  history  of  man  and  of  the 
world.  The  wood  of  the  cross,  which  faith  made  an 
object  of  passionate  affection  and  reverence  to  all  the 
Christian  world,  was  one  of  the  most  important 
objects   in   history,     A  ver}^  foolish  fashion   among 


HISTORICAL  IMPORTANCE.  H 

some  writers  has  led  them  to  speak  of  it  with  con- 
temptuous expressions.  Such  writers  are,  of  course, 
ignorant  of  the  facts  of  history.  Travelers  in  the 
Holy  Land,  following  the  fashion,  are  given  to  ridi- 
culing the  great  chasm  in  the  rocks  known  as  the 
Chapel  of  the  finding  of  the  Cross.  But  this  is  one 
of  the  least  questionable  of  all  the  sacred  localities. 
No  reader  of  history  can  doubt  that  from  this  chasm 
the  Empress  Helena  took  those  pieces  of  wood  which 
subsequently  became  to  the  faith  of  Europe  the  true 
cross.  Whether  she  was  a  deceiver,  or  was  deceived, 
or  whether,  indeed,  the  v/ood  was  the  veritable  wood 
of  the  cross,  the  event  of  its  finding  is  one  of  the 
most  profoundly  interesting  and  important  in  the 
history  of  man.  Its  immediate  effect  on  the  Roman 
Empire,  its  later  effect  on  Europe,  the  wars  to  which 
it  led,  the  changes  it  produced  in  the  political  his- 
tory of  Asia  and  Europe,  the  immeasurable  influence 
exerted  by  tfiose  fragments  of  wood  on  the  individual 
hearts  and  lives  of  hundreds  of  millions  of  the  human 
race,  all  are  of  such  magnitude  as  to  rebuke,  in 
thoughtful  minds,  the  flippant  style  in  which  some 
modern  writers  have  treated  the  event,  the  place  of 
discovery,  and  the  wood  itself.  As  a  historical  monu- 
ment, no  pyramid  of  Egypt,  no  Acropolis,  no  mound 


1 2  CROSSE S  A  ND  CR  UCIFIXION. 

over  the  slain  on  any  battle-field,  can  be  compared 
with  that  cavernous  chapel.  It  is  my  intent  to  give, 
with  as  much  impartiality  as  I  can,  the  history,  relat- 
ing the  facts  so  far  as  known,  and  the  traditions  so 
far  as  I  have  found  them,  which  go  to  show  the 
authenticity  or  the  falsehood  of  the  wood.  The 
reader  will  thus  be  enabled,  if  he  cares  to  do  so,  to 
form  his  own  judgment  of  the  reasons  for  the  faith 
of  Europe,  or  to  leave  that  portion  of  the  subject,  as 
I  have  myself  left  it,  without  definite  conclusion, 
regarding  it  as  of  very  small  importance  compared 
with  the  history  of  the  wood  and  its  influence  on 
the  destinies  of  Christian  nations. 


II. 

CROSSES    AND     CRUCIFIXION. 

The  cross  was  an  instrument  of  punishment  from 
an  early  date.  How  early  we  do  not  know.  The 
Greek  word  oravpog,  stauros^  translated  cross  in  the 
sacred  writings,  originally  signified  a  stake.  Thucyd- 
ides  uses  it,  and  the  verb  stauroo,  as  well  as  the  noun 
staurojna,  and  other  derivatives,  in  the  sense  of  stakes 


c/aossES. 


13 


driven  for  a  palisade.  It  is  probable  that  the  custom 
of  crucifixion,  as  we  understand  it,  came  from  the 
prior  custom  of  impaling  on  a  stake,  and  thus  the 
Greek  word  took  the  signification  given  to  it  in  later 
times. 

The  Latin  word  crux,  from  which  the  English  word 
cross  is  derived,  had  among  the  Latins  the  same  gen- 
eral meaning  which  we  give  to  the  word  "  cross  '* — 
primarily,  the  instrument  of  painful  punishment; 
secondarily,  trials  and  pains  in  life,  or  even  a  miser- 
able death.  Plautus  uses  the  word  in  describing 
death  by  drowning,  and  also  employs  the  words  cru- 
cior  and  cruciabilitas,  in  the  sense  of  torment. 

Terence  even  uses  the  word  crux  as  a  name  of  re- 
proach, meaning  "  wretch,"  *'  scoundrel." 

Seneca  (Epist.  loi)  speaks  at  length  of  the  tor- 
ments of  death  by  crucifixion,  using  the 
expressions  patibulo  peitdere.  and  acutam 
crucem.  The  Patibulum  was  constructed 
with  two  upright  beams  and  a  crossbeam 
connecting  them  at  the  top. 

The  Furca  was  in  the  shape  of  the  letter 
Y.  It  is  probable  that  in  most  cases  the 
furca  consisted  of  a  single  piece  of  wood ; 
the  trunk  of  a  tree  cut  off  with  two  diverging  branches. 


n 

Y 


1^  CRUCIFIXION. 

These  instruments  are  commonly  distinguished  by 
their  names;  but  the  Latin  writers  used  crux  and 
the  cognate  verbs,  nouns,  and  adjectives,  as  the 
Greeks  used  stauros^  when  describing  death  on  the 
stake,  the  furca,  the  patibulum,  or  any  form  of  cross. 

Cicero  and  other  Romans  speak  of  the  cross  as 
infelix  lignum.  In  one  of  his  orations,  Cicero  ex- 
pressed the  infamy  which  always  attached  to  the 
punishment  of  the  cross  (as  in  our  day  to  the  gal- 
lows), by  the  indignant  exclamation :  "  Let  the  very 
name  of  the  cross  be  put  far  away,  not  alone  from 
the  bodies,  but  from  the  eyes,  the  ears,  the  thoughts 
of  Roman  citizens." 

Crucifixion  was  a  punishment  accorded  by  the  Ro- 
mans to  slaves  and  those  convicted  of  the  most 
heinous  crimes.  It  was  also  a  common  mode  of 
inflicting  vengeance  on  conquered  enemies.  It  is  a 
remarkable  fact  that  one  of  the  most  terrible  in- 
stances of  this  punishment  recorded  in  history  is  the 
crucifixion  by  Titus  of  the  Hebrews  on  the  conquest 
of  Jerusalem.  Josephus  says  the  number  was  so 
great  that  wood  was  lacking  for  crosses.  It  has  not 
escaped  the  notice  of  many  writers  that  the  genera- 
tion had  not  passed  away  of  those  who  had  made 
the  Roman  hall  of  justice  ring  to  the  cry,  "  Crucify 


FORMS  OF  THE  CROSS.  1 5 

him  !  crucify  him  !  "  and  had  accepted  for  themselves 
and  their  children  the  responsibility  of  blood  thus 
visited  on  them. 

It  does  not  appear  clear  that  crucifixion  was  known 
to  the  ancient  Hebrews  as  a  mode  of  punishment, 
though  it  was  practiced  by  the  Egyptians  and  As- 
syrians, who  were  their  neighbors.  It  became  well 
known  to  them,  however,  under  the  Roman  power, 
Varus  once  crucifying  two  thousand  Jews  at  one 
time,  for  sedition.  The  Sanhedrim  condemned  our 
Lord  for  blasphemy  only ;  but  when  He  was  brought 
before  Pilate,  the  charge  of  sedition  was  urged,  and 
the  punishment  of  the  cross  demanded  and  ordered 
on  that  charge. 

The  forms  of  the  cross  were  various,  as  appears 
from  what  has  been  already  said.  The  Greek  words 
stauros  and  skolops  and  the  Latin  crux  were  applied 
to  all  these  forms. 

The  Simple  Cross  was  a  stake  or  single  piece  of 
wood.  A  growing  tree  was  a  common  instrument  of 
crucifixion,  to  which  the  condemned  was  bound  by 
cords,  either  with  the  arms  extended  on  branches  or 
drawn  backward  around  the  trunk.  Tertullian  speaks 
of  trees  as  crosses  on  which  Tiberius  punished  certain 
priests.  We  have  already  seen  that  a  person  impaled 
on  a  stake  was  said  to  be  crucified. 


1 6  FORMS  OF  THE  CROSS. 

The  Compound  Cross  was  of  three  forms  (excluding 
the  patibulum  and  the  furca).  These  three  are  now 
commonly  known  as : 


I.  The  Greek  Cross  {Decussatd)^  also 
called  St.  Andrew's  Cross. 


2.  The  Latin  Cross  {Immissd), 


3.  The  Tau  Cross  {Crux  Ansatci), 


X 
t 


Some  writers  have  given  to  the  crux  ansata  the 
name  St.  Anthony's  Cross,  because  of  a  sign  found 
figured  on  the  robes  of  St.  Anthony  in  old  Greek  art. 
This  sign,  however,  was  only  the  letter  T,  and  had 
not  the  same  form  as  the  crux  ansata.  It  is  found  on 
the  cope  or  on  the  left  shoulder  of  figures  of  St. 
Anthony  and  his  monks.  It  has  been  suggested  by 
Mrs.  Jameson  and  others  that  T  is  the  initial  letter  of 
the  Greek  word  Theos,  and  was  used  here  in  allusion 
to  the  hundred  and  forty  and  four  thousand  spoken 
of  in  Revelation  xiv.  i,  "having  his  Father's  name 


THE   TA  U  CROSS.  ff 

written  in  their  foreheads."  Mrs.  Jameson  cites  an 
ancient  stained  glass  in  France,  in  which  is  represented 
one  man  marking  T  on  the  forehead  of  another,  and 
over  them  the  words  Signum  Tmi. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  this  sign,  if  borne  by  St. 
Anthony,  who  lived  and  died*in  Egypt  in  the  fourth 
century,  or  found  on  early  representations  of  him  or 
his  monks,  may  have  had  reference  to  the  hieroglyphic 
"  crux  ansata "  found  on  Egyptian  monuments,  and 
adopted  by  early  Christians  in  the  Thebaid,  who  mis- 
took it  for  the  sign  of  the  cross.  We  shall  refer  to 
this  again.  So,  too,  it  may  have  referred  to  that 
passage  in  Ezekiel  ix.  4,  where  the  man  with  the  in,k 
horn  was  told,, to  g'o  through  the  city  and  "  set  a 
mark  "  on  the  foreheads  of  those  who  mourned  for 
the  sins  of  the  people.  The  expression  here  trans- 
lated "  set  a  mark  "  is  literally  "  mark  with  a  Tau." 
The  same  expression  occurs  in  i  Samuel  xxi.  13, 
where  David,  feigning  madness,  "  scrabbled  on  the 
doors  of  the  gate,"  literally  "  marked  the  Tau  "  on 
the  doors,  and  thus  saved  himself  from  the  enmity 
of  the  Philistine  king. 

Tau  was  the  last  letter  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet, 
and  in  its  ancient  form  was  a  cross.  Origen  says  that 
in  his  time  some  Hebrews  explained  the  passage  in 


1 8  CRUX  ANSA  TA. 

Ezekiel  by  supposing  this  mark  of  the  last  letter  to 
indicate  completeness,  the  end  of  the  alphabet  of 
sorrow  for  sin ;  others  supposed  it  to  be  the  indica- 
tion of  obedience  to  law,  because  the  letter  was  the 
first  in  the  word  Thorah,  the  law ;  but  that  the  Chris- 
tians, arguing  from  the  ancient  form  of  the  Hebrew 
letter,  regarded  it  as  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  a  pro- 
phetic use  of  that  sign. 

The  sign,  in  form  of  the  Latin  cross,  seldom  found 
in  use  before  Constantine,  except  in  Egypt,  may  have 
been  adopted  with  reference  to  these  Old  Testament 
passages,  and  perhaps  to  the  passage  in  the  Revela- 
tion as  well,  and  it  may  be  that  in  these  two  instances 
of  setting  a  mark  on  the  forehead  originated  the 
custom  among  Christians  of  marking  with  the  sign 
of  the  cross  on  tombs,  on  their  persons,  and  in  cere- 
monial observances. 

The  Crux  Ansata,  often  held  in  the  hand  of  Osiris, 
is  common  among  Egyptian  antiquities,  in  steatite, 
pottery,  and  other  materials,  and  as  a  hieroglyph  in 
legends.  It  has  been  variously  called  the  Key  of  the 
Nile  and  the  sign  of  Venus.  It  is  now  understood 
to  be  the  sign  of  Life,  and  is  of  such  frequent  occur- 
rence  in  hieroglyphic  sculptures  that  it  is  not  strange 
that  it  attracted  the  eyes  of  the  early  Christians  in 


CRUX  AXSATA.  jg 

Egypt,  who  mistook  it  for  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and 
adopted  it  as  such.  Wilkinson  found  it  used  as  a 
prefix  to  early  Christian  inscriptions  in  the  Great 
Oasis. 

Mr.  Layard,  finding  it  among  the  antiquities  of 
Assyria,  supposes  it  to  be  a  symbol  of  Divinity. 

A  similar  sign  is  found  among  the  ancient  remains 
of  Central  America. 

The  subject  has  importance  here  only  for  the  idea 
adopted  by  some  that  this  peculiar  symbol  indicates 
relations  between  distant  nations,  and  also  a  pre- 
Christian  significance  to  the  sign  of  the  cross. 

This  Is  not  a  scientific  treatise;  otherwise,  it 
might  be  interesting  to  review  the  discussion  of  this 
subject.  It  is  proper,  however,  to  note  that  the  sign 
which  has  been  cabled  the  Crux  Ansata,  as  found  in 
various  localities,  is  so  varied  in  form  that  it  is  by  no 
means  apparent  that  it  is  always  the  same  sign.  It 
is  one  of  those  marks  which  may  naturally  grow  into 
use  when  a  people  begin  to  write  or  make  pictures. 

A  sign  made  by  two  lines  crossing  each 
other  at  right  angles,  with  the  ends  of 
the  lines  ag^in  deflected  at  right  angles, 
is  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  frequent 
decorations   found    on   Cypriote    pottery,    which    is 


4n 


20-  SIGN  OF  LIFE. 

perhaps,  the  oldest  representation  of  Phenician  and 
Asiatic  art  which  we  now  possess.  On  many  vases 
in  the  Cesnola  Collection  (in  the  Metropolitan  Museum 
of  Art  in  New  York)  it  is  made  exceedingly  prom- 
inent. On  one  vase,  which  we  think  may  be  cor- 
rectly assigned  to  a  period  much  older  than  B.C.  looo, 
it  appears  in  a  remarkable  picture.  It  is  in  the 
wide-opened  mouth  of  a  fish,  and  from  without  an 
arrow  points  toward  it.  Over  the  fish  stands  a  stork, 
piercing  the  fish  with  his  long  bill.  If  the  arrow 
signifies  death,  we  may  conjecture  that  on  this  old 
specimen  the  peculiar  symbol  represents  life,  and  thus 
read  the  picture  as  the  simple  story  of  life  from  death  ; 
the  fish  destroying  life  that  he  may  live,  the  stork 
destroying  the  fish  that  he  may  live. 

Whatever  be  the  meaning  of  the  symbol,  we  dis- 
miss it  here  with  the  single  remark  that  crossed  lines 
are  among  the  first  forms  of  drawing  in  decoration  by 
all  barbarous  races,  and  that  the  Crux  Ansata  is  the 
simplest  form,  which  a  child  or  a  savage  might  pro- 
duce in  drawing  a  picture  of  a  man.  Simple  forms 
of  decoration  in  lines  and  circles,  and  some  apparent- 
ly complex  forms  resulting  from  them  in  checks, 
meander  patterns,  beads,  and  drops,  are  common  to 
many  nations,  and  remain  popular  because  of  theii 


GREEK  AND  LA  TIN  CROSSES.  2 1 

actual  simplicity.  The  Chinese  have  for  some  cen- 
turies down  to  the  present  day,  used  as  an  ornament- 
al decoration  on  porcelain,  the  figure  which  we  have 
given  above  as  common  to  the  ancient  Phenicians, 
and  it  is  also  found  in  early  Christian  work  in  Italy. 
We  have  it,  on  Chinese  porcelain,  with  a  second  ex- 
tension of  the  ends  of  the  arms,  parallel  to  the  chief 
arms. 

The  Greek  cross,  being  in  the  form  of  the  letter  X, 
the  Greek  initial  letter  of  the  name  of  the  Lord,  was 
early  adopted  by  Christians  as  a  sign  of 
the  Yaith.  Th,ey  engraA^ed  it  on  gems 
and  placed  it  on  the  tombs  of  the  dead. 
In  time  they  added  to  it  the  next  letter 
in  the  name,  the  Greek  Rho,  which  -  is- the  Latin  P' 
and  this  f6rm,  Xp.  in  monogram  went  upon  the 
imperial  standard  of  Rome  in  the  place  of  the 
eagle.  '  _    ,      ,        ..  .     '"   ", 

The  Latin  cross  wag  the  form  used  in  the  crucifix- 
ion of  our  Lord.  On  this  all  the  authorities  are 
agreed,  and  the  fact  that  the  inscription  of  Pilate  was 
placed  above  his  head  is  alone  sufficient  evidence  of 
it.  This  cross  consisted  of  either  two  or  three  pieces 
of  wood,  the  upright,  the  crossbeam,  and  a  third 
piece  projecting  higher  or  lower  from  the  ground,  to 


1 


f 


22  PETERS  CRUCIFIXION. 

give  support  in  one  case  to  the  body,  and  in  the 
other  to  the  feet,  lest  the  weight  should  tear  the 
hands  from  the  nails.  This  form  of  the  cross  did  not 
often  appear  on  sculptures  until  the  time  of  Constan- 
tine,  and,  as  has  been  remarked,  v/hen  found,  is  more 
frequently  a  copy  of  the  Egyptian  sign  of  life,  or  of 
the  old  Hebrew  Tau.  In  the  days  of  Constantine 
its  use  became  more  common ;  it  ap- 
pears on  coins,  and  the  monogram  of 
Xp.  was  often  after  this  constructed  with 
the  Latin  cross. 

Crucifixion,  the  fastening  to  the  cross,  was  either 
by  cords  binding  the  limbs  to  the  cross,  or  by  nails 
driven  through  the  hands  and  feet.  In  either  case 
death  ensued  from  exhaustion  and  suffering.  The 
agony  was  often  long  and  lingering.  Victims  some- 
times lived  for  several  days  on  crosses.  Bearing  in 
mind  the  custom  of  binding  the  condemned  to  the 
cross  by  cords,  we  see  peculiar  significance  in  the 
words  of  Christ  to  Peter,  "  When  thou  shalt  be  old, 
thou  shalt  stretch  forth  thy  hands  and  another  shall 
gird  thee  and  carry  thee  whither  thou  wouldest  not." 
Doubtless  when  bound  to  the  wood  and  carried  to 
the  place  of  his  suffering,  Peter  remembered  these 
words,  and  perhaps  the  expression  which  succeeded 


CONS TA  N  TINE  A  ND  HELENA.  2 3 

them,  "  Follow  me ; "  and  he  may  have  murmured, 
"  Yea,  Lord,  I  follow  Thee — but  I  am  not  worthy  to 
die  as  Thou  didst  die."  For  we  know  that  he  begged 
the  executioners  to  plant  his  cross  with  his  head 
downwards,  and  thus  died. 


III. 

CONSTANTINE     AND     HELENA. 

A  WRITER  who  has  contributed  to  one  of  the  most 
valuable  dictionaries  of  our  time  a  learned  article  on 
the  word  Cross,  dismisses  a  brief  notice  of  the  wood, 
whose  history  we  now  propose  to  sketch,  with  a 
reference  to  a  few  authorities  for  such  readers  as  are 
interested  in  pursuing  a  history  of  "  ridiculous  im- 
posture." Surely  the  history  of  Mohammed  is  not 
ridiculous,  though  he  were  an  impostor.  And  it  is 
equally  sure  that  there  is  nothing  ridiculous  about 
that  wood  which  so  inflamed  the  heart  of  all  Chris- 
tendom, century  after  century,  as  to  hurl  the  forces 
of  Europe  again  and  again  against  the  forces  of 
Mohammedanism  until  the  latter  triumphed.  The 
cross  was  the  chief  object  of  European  affection  ; 
the  cross  was  the  exciting  object   of  Christian  war 


24  THE  TRUE  CROSS. 

the  cross  was  the  sign,  taking  which,  the  crusaders 
went  to  rescue  cross  and  sepulchre  from  the  hands 
of  the  infidels.  The  faith  of  men  in  the  verity  of 
that  wood,  as  the  wood  of  Christ's  suffering,  shaped 
the  history  of  Europe,  changed  the  whole  course  of 
events  in  Christendom. 

It  was  nothing  but  two  or  three  pieces  of  wood. 
But  whether  cross  of  Christ,  or  cross  of  thief,  or 
timber  of  some  old  house  in  Jerusalem,  around  no 
other  object,  sensible  or  senseless,  have  the  hearts  of 
men  throbbed  as  around  it.  For  nearly  a  thousand 
years  that  wood  was  the  center  of  the  world.  Ro- 
man Emperors,  Gothic  invaders,  the  descendants  of 
Goth  and  Roman,  Kings  of  France  and  Germany 
and  England,  and  subjects  of  every  race  and  nation 
in  the  civilized  world,  regarded  that  block  of  wood 
as  the  very  door-post  of  Heaven.  The  young  made 
vows  of  faith,  swearing  by  its  sanctity.  The  old 
turned  their  old  eyes  toward  Jerusalem  before  they 
died,  and  sometimes  thought  —  whether  it  was  the 
light  glimmering  through  tears,  or  the  bursting  on 
their  sight  of  the  glories  that  are  sometimes  revealed 
to  the  dying — that  they  beheld  the  radiant  light  of 
the  thorn-crowned  Head.  Pilgrims  of  many  gener- 
ations knelt  before  it  and  laid  their  sins  down  on  the 


SPREAD  OF  THE  FAITH.  2$ 

Stones  of  the  Holy  City.     Thousands  died  for  it  to  res- 
cue it  from  the  hands  of  the  infidel ;  and  when  they 
had   once  rescued    it,  knights   and   kings  fought  to 
preserve  it,  and  dying,  were  buried  in  stately  rank 
around   its  foot.      Monarchs  resigned   their  thrones 
for  the  sake  of  defending  or  rescuing  it,  and  when  at 
last  it  vanished  from  the  eyes  of  the  world,  another 
era  began,  as  if  a  sun  had  disappeared,  and  a  profound 
darkness  had  taken  its  place.     Let  no  one  think  this 
any  exaggeration  of  the  importance  of  this  wood  in 
the  history  of  the  world.     It  can  not  be  exaggerated. 
The  conquests  of  Christianity  over  Paganism  with- 
in  the    three   centuries   immediately   following    the 
crucifixion  were  rapid.     In  three  hundred  years  the 
religion  of  the  Cross  conquered  the   Roman  world. 
History  shows  no  such  instance  of  propagandism  as 
this.     From  a  despised  and  hated  sect  the  Christians 
grew  to  be  the  rulers  of  the  earth.     From  that  small 
company  which  assembled  around  the  table  of  the 
last   supper,   they  within   three   centuries  numbered 
among  themselves  the  hosts  of  Rome ;  and  at  length 
the  followers  of  the  despised  man  of  Nazareth,  who 
kept  faithful  vigil  at  Jerusalem,  where  a  Roman  gover- 
nor had  done  Him  to  death  at  the  cry  of  a  Jewish 
mob,  beheld  the  Emperor  of  Rome,  not  indeed  \\\ 


26  CONSTANTINE. 

person,  but  in  proxy  by  his  aged  and  pious  mother, 
on  foot  and  in  sackcloth,  entering  the  gate  of  the  city 
and  seeking  with  pilgrim  footsteps  "  the  place  where 
they  laid  Him.'* 

The  question  of  the  v'erity  of  the  wood  of  the  cross 
will  be  seen  to  depend  very  much  on  an  estimate  of 
the  character  of  the  Emperor  Constantine.  The 
account  is  familiar,  which  Constantine  himself  gave  to 
Eusebius,  of  his  vision  of  the  cross  in  the  heavens, 
and  his  subsequent  dream  of  the  presence  of  Christ 
bearing  the  sacred  symbol.  Was  this  or  was  it  not 
a  pure  invention  of  the  wily  Emperor  to  secure  the 
Christian  influence?  The  Christians  were  a  small 
minority  of  the  people  of  the  Roman  world.  The 
pagan  religion  had  not  wholly  lost  its  hold  on  the 
nations  of  Western  Europe,  and  the  East,  under 
Licinius,  had  not  seriously  felt  the  new  faith  as  a 
power  among  men.  But  the  pagan  faith  was  dying. 
Men  were  in  general  infidels.  Christianity  was  the 
only  religion  in  the  Roman  Empiie  which  had  life, 
vigor,  and  the  grand  element  of  faith  in  its  professors. 

The  Empress  Helena,  widow  of  Constantius  Chlorus 
and  mother  of  Constantine,  was  an  Englishwoman 
and  a  Christian.  How  far  his  mother's  faith  influ- 
enced him  we  have  no  means  of  knowing.     The  cross 


CONST  Ay  TINE.  27 

had  not  been,  up  to  this  date,  used  as  the  public 
symbol  of  Christian  faith.  The  Greek  cross  X  had 
been  in  use  on  secret  tombs,  and  probably  on  per- 
sonal ornaments.  The  Latin  cross  had  also  been 
used  occasionally,  but  not  so  frequently  as  the 
Greek. 

Constantine,  either  on  account  of  his  vision  or  for 
some  other  reason  unknown  to  us,  possibly  from  a  sin- 
cere conversion  to  the  religion  of  the  Nazarene, 
adopted  the  cross  as  the  symbol  of  his  religion  and 
the  empire.  Considered  as  a  naked  historical  fact,  it 
was  a  wonderfully  bold  act.  We  have  already  seen 
that  crucifixion  had  been  detestable  to  Romans,  and 
the  cross  as  much  an  emblem  of  disgrace  in  their 
view  as  a  gallows  would  be  in  ours  to-day.  Let  us 
imagine  a  European  or  American  government  adopt- 
ing the  gallows  as  a  standard,  and  commanding  its 
armies  to  march  to  victory  under  it.  What  would  be 
the  probable  effect  ?  Yet  what  was  the  effect  in  this 
instance  ?  The  army  marched  on  from  victory  to 
victory,  until  in  A.D.  323-324  the  Western  forces,  carry- 
ing the  standard  of  the  Cross,  met  the  Eastern  forces, 
carrying  the  old  banners  of  Rome,  and  Constantine, 
defeating  Licinius  in  a  battle  in  which  two  hundred 
thousand  men  were  engaged,  near  Hadrianople,  fol- 


28  CONS  TA  N  TINE. 

lowed  up  his  victory  to  the  capture  of  Byzantium, 
annihilated  the  Eastern  army  on  the  opposite  shore 
of  the  Bosphorus,  and  planted  the  standard  of  the 
Cross  where  Europe  and  Asia  alike  could  see  it,  to  be 
thenceforward  the  object  of  their  veneration. 

We  shall  see  in  a  moment  what  this  Christian  sym- 
bol, the  Labariim  of  history,  has  to  do  with  the  wood 
which  is  our  subject.  Constantine  was  not  satisfied 
with  the  glory  he  had  attained,  even  adding  his  con- 
quests over  the  Goths  and  the  unity  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  He  had  conquered  by  the  cross.  What 
was  this  cross  ?  Gauls,  Romans  and  Goths,  Persians 
and  Scythians,  all  might  well  ask  what  was  this  sign 
which  the  emperor  had  adopted,  and  under  which  he 
had  been  invincible.  He  had  made  the  world  honor 
the  sign,  borne  in  glittering  gold  at  the  head  of  his 
armies ;  he  had  made  it  to  blaze  in  jewels  on  his 
crown,  and  had  placed  it  on  his  coins,  so  that  all  who 
handled  Roman  money  should  be  familiar  with  it. 
After  all  this  he  seems  to  have  determined  to  show 
them  the  original  cross  itself. 

Whether  the  pilgrimage  of  his  pious  mother  to  the 
Holy  Land  originated  in  her  own  desire,  or  in  grief 
for  the  death  of  her  grandson  Crispus,  or  was  sug- 
gested by  her  son,  does  not  clearly  appear.     What- 


HELENA, 


29 


ever  the  origin,  however,  no  one  doubts  the  sincerity 
and  devotion  with  which  the  empress  accomplished 
it.  Furnished  with  abundant  means  and  credentials 
as  the  representative  of  the  emperor  himself,  Helena 
went  to  Jerusalem  in  the  year  326,  and  there  repre- 
sented him  in  the  works  which  she  accomplished. 
Helena  was  no  impostor  or  helper  of  imposture. 
She  was  a  pious  old  Englishwoman,  and  may  have 
been  imposed  on,  but  I  do  not  know  that  any  one 
has  thought  so  ill  of  her  as  to  suggest  that  there  was 
any  hypocrisy  in  her. 

Besides,  she  had  learned  men  for  her  advisers — 
men  whom  the  world  has  never  accused  of  wrong  or 
deceit.  The  most  we  know  of  her  work  is  from 
Eusebius,  who  was  in  Palestine  and  in  Jerusalem  at 
about  this  time.  It  is  alpo  an  element  in  the  argu- 
ment for  or  against  the  sincerity  of  her  acts  and  the 
acts  of  her  advisers,  that  this  precise  period  was  one 
of  great  learning  and  bitter  controversy  in  the 
Church.  The  Council  of  Nice,  perhaps  the  most 
celebrated  in  all  ecclesiastical  history,  was  held  just 
at  this  time  (a.D.  325),  and  to  its  affirmations  Prot- 
estant and  Catholic  now  alike  refer  as  authority. 
But  the  learning  and  piety  of  the  Church  and  the 
clergy  is  less  important  to  the  argument  than  the 


30 


LOCA  TION  OF  CAL  VAR  V. 


fact  of  the  bitter  enmity  existing  between  those  hold- 
ing various  creeds,  and  the  careful  watch  kept  by  one 
on  another  for  any  and  every  ground  of  accusation. 
The  Arian  controversy  was  going  on.  It  was  a  very 
difficult  time,  perhaps  more  difficult  than  would 
have  been  this  nineteenth  century,  for  the  Church  in 
Jerusalem  to  deceive  the  world  by  an  imposture  cal- 
culated to  increase  its  power  and  influence. 

If,  therefore,  there  was  any  deceit  about  the  dis- 
covery of  the  cross,  it  was  in  all  probability  arranged 
by  Constantine  himself,  so  as  to  impose  on  his  oid 
mother,  the  Christian  Church,  and  the  Roman  world. 


IV. 


THE     PLACE     OF    CRUCIFIXION. 

-^'HERE  was  very  small  possibility  of  deceit  with 
'f  ierence  to  the  place  of  the  crucifixion  and  burial. 
The  spot  was  well  known.  Eusebius,  Bishop  of 
Caesarea  (who  was  in  Jerusalem  at  the  dedication  of 
the  church  built  by  Constantine  at  Golgotha),  states 
that  the  tomb  of  Joseph  had  been  purposely  covered 


Z  0  CA  TION  OF  CA  LVARY.  3 1 

deep  with  earth  brought  from  a  distance,  over  which 
was  a  pavement,  and  on  this  a  temple  of  Venus  ;  and 
that  this  desecration  was  by  pagans,  for  the  purpose 
of  consigning  the  tomb  to  obHvion. 

Helena,  authorized  by  Constantine,  destroyed  the 
temple  of  Venus  and  began  to  remove  the  earth  which 
was  polluted  by  the  heathen  worship.  She  was  not 
seeking  the  sepulchre.  The  special  monumental 
church  was  to  be  built  over  the  place  of  crucifixion. 
The  sepulchre  was  found,  greatly  to  the  surprise 
of  all,  intact,  buried  in  the  earth.  The  Basilica  was 
erected  over  the  rock  of  Calvary,  the  sepulchre  being 
in  the  court  in  front  of  the  church. 

If  the  statement  of  Eusebius  was  untrue,  it  could 
not  in  those  days  have  gained  credence.  Jerusalem 
was  full  of  learned,  wily  enemies  of  Christianity,  who, 
had  there  been  any  such  gross  blunder  as  locating  the 
place  within  the  walls  of  the  old  city  (where  it  cer- 
tainly could  not  have  been),  would  have  exposed  it 
with  delight.  The  walls  of  the  old  city  on  the  west  side 
had  never  been  overthrown,  so  far  as  history  records. 
Modern  writers  have  curiously  misread  history  on 
this  point.  Outside  of  that  western  wall,  and  close 
to  it,  was  the  place  pointed  out  to  Helena  as 
Golgotha. 


32 


LOCA  TION  OF  CAL  VAR  Y. 


It  is  only  within  the  present  century  that  some 
able  writers  have  quite  vehemently  combatted  the 
idea  that  Helena  found  the  right  place.  Some  have 
even  undertaken  to  locate  it  elsewhere,  on  such  evi- 
dence as  can  now  be  found. 

The  topographical  argument  rests  entirely  on  the 
question  of  the  line  of  the  "  second "  wall,  which 
some  modern  writers  are  confident  must  have  run 
west  of  the  Church  of  the  Sepulchre,  thus  including 
the  locality  within  the  city  of  the  time  of  Christ. 
On  this  point,  I  think  the  learned  men  of  the  fourth 
century,  and  all  the  centuries  since  then,  are  right, 
and  the  few  doubters  of  the  nineteenth  century  are 
wrong.  I  think  that  I  have  seen  the  second  wall,  in 
a  wall  of  massive  stones,  which  I  found  in  1870,  ex- 
posed for  some  hours  by  the  digging  out  of  the  rear 
of  a  shop  on  the  Via  Dolorosa.  This  wall  was  of 
huge  stones,  Hebrew,  probably.  Climbing  to  the  top, 
in  the  rear  of  the  shop,  I  found  that  that  pile  of  ruins 
known  to  some  as  the  ruins  of  the  Basilica  of  Con- 
stantine,  lay  against  and  concealed  the  western  side 
of  this  wall. 

Argument  on  this  subject  seems  of  small  account 
when  the  simple  fact,  undisputed  by  any  one,  is  view- 
ed, that  Helena  and  her  advisers  located  the  place 


LOCALITY  OF  CALVARY.  33 

of  the  crucifixion  three  hundred  years  after  its  occur- 
rence, and  no  one  then,  nor  thereafter,  for  fifteen 
hundred  years,  disputed  the  location,  although  for  all 
that  time  it  was  the  very  heart  of  Christendom. 

But  it  is  contended  that  Helena,  and  Eusebius,  and 
Macarius,  then  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  and  other  good 
and  wise  men,  could  not  have  had  any  satisfactory 
evidence  from  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem,  because 
the  early  Christians  did  not  reverence  relics  or  special 
localities,  and  would  not  have  preserved  the  knowl- 
edge of  this  locality.  Certainly  this  allegation  is  not 
only  without  authority,  but  contrary  to  every  au- 
thority. And  in  the  interests  of  history,  it  seems 
necessary  to  expose  the  untenable  character  of  such 
an  allegation,  lest  the  sudden  and  universal  devotion 
of  the  Christian  world  to  the  discovered  locality  should 
seem  miraculous.  For  if  they  had  no  previous  regard 
for  such  a  place,  and  no  love,  respect,  or  care  for  per- 
sonal memorials  of  the  Life,  Passion,  Death,  and  Res- 
urrection, then  their  subsequent  treatment  of  cross 
and  sepulchre  is  inexplicable. 

The  Hebrew  race  were  noted  for  the  honor  done 
to  the  burial-places  of  their  ancestors.  ''  Whose  sep- 
ulchre is  with  us  to  this  day,"  is  a  common  saying 
in  their  sacred  history,  indicating  clearly  that  such 
places  were  known  and  their  memory  kept. 


34  LOCALITY  OF  CAL  VAR  V. 

In  the  ancient  tombs,  now  remaining  by  hundreds, 
hewn  in  the  rocks  around  Jerusalem,  one  of  the  most 
common  styles,  often  repeated,  is  that  in  which  an 
outer  chamber  was  left  open,  for  relatives  and  friends 
to  visit  the  tomb  and  sit  within  the  portal,  and  often 
a  small  window  opened  through  the  wall  from  this 
room  into  the  dark  and  closed  chamber  in  which  the 
bodies  lay.  I  have  seen  many  tombs  of  this  descrip- 
tion immediately  around  Jerusalem.  These  tombs 
were  for  generations  of  families,  and  this  custom  of 
visiting  graves  is  a  Hebrew  custom  to  the  present 
day.  All  the  habits  of  the  Jerusalem  Christians  must 
have  been  in  favor  of  their  preserving  with  accuracy 
the  localities  of  important  events  in  the  life  of  the 
Lord. 

The  absence  of  written  accounts  during  the  period 
intervening  from  the  crucifixion  to  the  arrival  of 
Helena,  has  been  noted  by  some  as  if  the  present 
want  of  such  accounts  were  evidence  that  none  ex- 
isted then.  To  all  who  are  familiar  with  the  subject 
of  ancient  writings,  and  the  evidence  of  the  vast 
quantity  and  variety  which  did  exist,  but  which  have 
disappeared,  this  idea  will  seem  quite  erroneous.  Of 
making  of  books  in  old  times  there  was  no  end.  Not 
only  were  there  great  libraries,  but  immense  numbers 


LOCALIT  V  OF  CAL  VAR  Y.  35 

of  private  manuscripts,  letters,  poems,  histories,  of 
which  we  have  ample  evidence.  These  have  abso- 
lutely vanished.  We  do  not  possess  one  in  a  thou- 
sand of  the  works  of  ancient  authors.  Millions  of 
pages  of  ancient  records,  perhaps  in  Jerusalem  alone, 
have  perished  utterly.  Eusebius  alludes  to  the 
"  writings  "  from  which  information  was  obtained  ;  but 
the  customs  of  the  East  were  such  that  in  a  matter 
of  locality  like  this,  where  only  three  hundred  years 
had  elapsed,  the  verbal  evidence  of  residents  would 
have  all  the  weight  that  would  now  be  given  to  a 
topographical  map  duly  verified  and  recorded. 

The  accuracy  with  which  oral  tradition  delivers 
history  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  from  generation 
to  generation,  is  a  distinguished  fact  among  Oriental 
nations.  So  perfect  is  this,  that  among  the  modern 
Eastern  races  news  of  important  events  flies  rapidly 
from  place  to  place  without  variation  or  exaggera- 
tion. The  people  are  not  excitable.  There  is  no 
temptation,  as  among  Western  nations,  to  exaggerate 
for  the  purpose  of  creating  a  sensation.  The  old 
men  in  the  khalili  bazaar  in  Cairo,  who  sit  calmly 
smoking  away  the  time,  if  they  heard  that  a  building 
had  fallen  in  a  neighboring  street  and  killed  a  hundred 
people,  would  but  take  their  pipes  from  their  mouths 


36 


LOCALITY  OF  CALVARY. 


and  say  gently,  '■''  Did  you  say  a  hundred  ?  Mashallah ! '' 
and  resume  their  smoking.  Here  or  in  Europe  there 
would  be  a  wild  excitement  and  a  fierce  rush  of 
crowds  to  the  scene.  Such  people  repeat  statements 
with  deliberation  and  care.  Our  abundant  knowledge 
of  ancient  manners  and  customs,  and  the  well  known 
fact  that  they  were  much  the  same  in  ancient  days  in 
the  East  as  now,  give  us  authority  for  believing  that 
the  transmission  of  information  was  then  accurate. 

There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  Christians 
of  Jerusalem  were  accustomed,  in  the  years  that  fol- 
lowed the  life  of  the  Lord  on  earth,  to  converse  con- 
stantly about  every  event  in  that  life,  and  above  all 
things  about  the  events  of  the  last  scene,  which  they 
believed,  as  we  believe  it,  the  most  sublime  and  awful 
event  which  had  ever  occurred  in  the  universe  of  God. 

It  seems  to  be  quite  absurd  to  say  that  the  early 
Christians  confined  their  thoughts  wholly  to  the  spir- 
itual character  of  the  Lord's  mission,  and  cared  noth- 
ing for  the  physical  memorials  of  his  incarnation. 
Remember  the  morning  of  the  Resurrection.  Let  us 
picture,  if  we  can,  the  holy  women  coming  in  the  cold 
starlight  to  the  tomb  of  Joseph.  As  they  approached 
it,  it  was  to  them,  in  their  yet  untaught  love  and 
faith,  the  burial-place  of  their  murdered  Master,  a 


LOCALITY  OF  CALVARY. 


37 


place  whither,  so  long  as  their  lives  of  sorrow  on 
earth  should  continue,  they  expected  to  come,  morn- 
ing and  evening,  and  mourn  by  his  dead  dust.  So  I 
have  frequently  seen  women  in  the  East,  at  the  break 
of  dawn,  sitting  by  the  graves  of  their  beloved  dead 
They  approach,  and  the  great  rock  stands  out  black 
in  the  gloom,  with  the  closed  doorway  and  the  seal 
on  the  stone,  and  the  guards  standing — Roman  sen- 
tinels— watching,  that  none  should  open  it.  If  that 
were  all,  if,  as  the  poor  ignorant  mourners  believed, 
that  were  the  end,  and  the  beloved  body  that  lay 
there  was  to  sink  into  dust  with  all  the  old  dead  of 
old  Jerusalem,  then,  so  long  as  disciple  or  scoffer 
lived  in  the  city,  from  generation  to  generation,  this 
would  have  been  pointed  out  with  Oriental  accuracy 
as  the  burial-place  of  Jesus  the  Nazarene. 

How  much  more,  since  that  was  not  all  ?  **  Who 
shall  roll  us  back  the  stone,  that  we  may  do  the  last 
sad  offices  for  this  poor  body  of  our  dead,  dead 
Master?"  The  guard  heard  the  question  with  the 
stohd  indifference  of  the  Roman  soldier.  When  sud- 
denly an  angel  appeared,  and  rolled  back  the  stone, 
and  showed  the  astonished  mourners  and  terrified 
guard  the  empty  tomb.  "  See,  He  is  not  here.  He 
is  risen.     Why  seek  ye  the  living  among  the  dead  ?  " 


38  LOCALITY  OF  CALVARY. 

There  lay  the  grave-clothes,  but  the  grave  was  enipty. 
They  had  seen  the  sealed  door-stone  rolled  back,  but 
the  crucified  body  was  not  there. 

Well  might  Roman  soldiers  sink  fainting  to  the 
ground  and  remember  the  words  of  their  centurion, 
**  Truly  this  was  the  Son  of  God." 

Who  will  tell  us  that  this  was  the  last  visit  paid  by 
Mary  or  the  disciples  to  that  tomb  in  the  garden? 
Who  will  expect  a  sensible  man  to  believe  that  the 
scene  of  this  stupendous  event,  unparalleled  in  the 
history  of  man,  was  treated  with  indifference  by  those 
who  loved  the  Lord,  and  suffered  to  be  so  wholly  un- 
known as  to  be  forgotten  ? 

But  localities  were  not  the  only  physical  memorials 
of  Christ.  There  were  many  others  treasured  with 
devout  affection  by  the  early  Christians.  Were  they 
of  blood  and  emotions  different  from  other  races  of 
men  ?  Human  nature  has  been  much  the  same  in  all 
ages.  We  do  not  forget  the  graves  of  our  beloved 
dead.  We  visit  them,  lay  flowers  on  them.  We 
keep  little  memorials  of  them.  It  is  even  common  to 
keep  relics  of  those  in  no  way  related  to  us,  but  in 
whose  names  we  have  interest.  The  bullet  which 
killed  a  great  general  is  preserved  in  a  national 
museum.     The  bloody  coat  in  which  Nelson  fell  at 


LOCALIT V  OF  CAL  VAR  V.  3q 

Trafalgar  is  one  of  the  treasures  of  a  princely  cabinet. 
The  old  gray  coat  of  the  Little  Corporal  and  Great 
Emperor  has  moved  many  a  heart  with  strong  emo- 
tion, as  the  eye  has  caught  it  in  its  case  in  one  of  the 
halls  of  the  Louvre.  While  we  in  America  have  small 
reverence  for  religious  relics,  we  have  a  great  deal  for 
personal  relics.  Our  historical  societies  have  cases 
filled  with  swords  of  generals,  with  chairs  and  tank- 
ards, and  small  memorials  of  those  who,  for  one 
reason  or  another,  are  held  in  memory.  We  pay  high 
prices  for  old  autographs.  It  is  some  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  since  the  Mayflower  brought  to  New 
England  a  colony  of  men  and  women,  and  the  rock 
where  they  are  said  to  have  landed  is  New  England's 
pride,  and  their  household  goods  are  relics  enshrined 
in  a  hundred  cabinets. 

With  all  this  modern  human  nature  visible  around 
us,  there  are  those  who  would  have  us  believe  that 
no  one  thought  of  keeping  a  relic  of  the  King  of 
kings.  No  one  cared  for  a  memorial  of  that  humble, 
sorrowful  life  which  ended  in  the  burst  of  glory  above 
the  Mount  of  Olives  when  He  ascended  to  his  Father 
and  his  throne. 

I  don't  believe  them.  Lazarus  would  never  part  in 
Hfe  with  a  cup  which  that  hand  had  touched  in  the 


40 


LOCALITY  OF  CALVARY. 


evening  of  the  day  when  it  had  grasped  his  hand  just 
loosed  from  the  grave-clothes.  The  daughter  of 
Jairus  would  hand  down  to  her  children  the  memori- 
als of  his  coming  to  her  father's  house. 

The  Son  of  Man  had  not  great  store  of  worldly 
goods.  He  was  very  poor.  As  now  in  the  East,  so 
then,  it  is  probable  that  all  the  clothing  a  poor  man 
possessed  was  what  he  wore.  "  Take  up  thy  bed  and 
walk "  meant  as  it  would  mean  now,  take  up  the 
coarse  bournoose,  the  outer  cloak,  which  you  threw 
down  to  lie  on,  put  it  on  and  go  your  w^ay.  He  had 
no  home  or  household  goods  or  earthly  possessions. 
But  Judea  and  Galilee  were  full  of  memorials  of  his 
presence,  and  these  were  treasured  with  devout  af- 
fection and  reverence ;  and  when  the  days  of  trial 
came,  and  the  enemy  beleaguered  Jerusalem  and 
swept  Galilee  with  the  besom  of  w^ar,  these  were  the 
last  possessions  with  which  the  persecuted  v/ould 
consent  to  part. 

That  spiritual  worship  which  the  Lord  taught  was 
no  whit  less  spiritual  because  the  loving  disciple  held 
in  his  hand  while  he  prayed  a  memorial  of  the  bodily 
presence  on  earth  of  Him  who  had  gone  to  his 
throne  on  high.  Do  you  love  your  dead  child  any 
less  when  you  hold  in  your  hand  a  lock  of  his  hair? 


LOCALITY  OF  CALVARY, 


4t 


Do  not  reply  to  this  that  such  love  is  of  the  baser 
and  earthly  sort.  That  human  body  is  the  link 
which  makes  Him  our  Elder  Brother.  I  think  you 
would  do  well  to  teach  yourselves  and  your  children 
to  draw  near  to  Christ  the  man.  It  is  the  only  way  in 
which  human  creatures  can  at  all  get  near  to  Him. 
Dwell  on  every  event  of  his  life  and  passion.  For 
this  the  whole  history  of  that  life  and  passion  has 
been  given  us.  Imagine,  if  you  can,  the  divine  be- 
nevolence of  his  countenance,  the  glory  that  must 
have  been  in  his  smile,  the  lustre  of  his  eye.  Nay, 
more,  when  faith  grows  weak  and  doubt  overtakes 
you,  faint-hearted,  do  not  attempt  to  lift  your  heart 
to  the  ineffable  majesty  enthroned  on  high  until  you 
have  first  heard  and  obeyed  his  voice :  "■  Reach 
hither  thy  finger  and  behold  my  hands,  and  reach 
hither  thy  hand  and  thrust  it  into  my  side,  and  be 
not  faithless,  but  believing." 

Depend  upon  it,  the  Christians  of  Jerusalem  knew 
and  told  to  one  another  many  of  those  things  which 
Jesus  did  that  John  left  unwritten  ;  and  they  knew 
well  every  spot  where  the  things  were  done.  And  if 
it  be  said  that  the  Christians  were  expelled  from 
Jerusalem,  this  is  an  error.  I  do  not  believe  that 
from  the  day  of  the  crucifixion  to  this,  evening  ever 


42 


LOCALITY  OF  CALVARY 


closed  in  on  Jerusalem  unaccompanied  by  the  voice 
of  Christian  prayer.  Nor  is  there  any  historical  rea- 
son for  believing  it. 

If,  therefore,  there  was  any  imposture  practiced  in 
reference  to  the  cross,  it  was  not  with  reference 
to  the  locality  where  Helena  looked  for  it.  Every 
one  knew  that. 

The  temple  which  had  been  erected  over  the 
sepulchre  was  destroyed,  the  heaps  of  earth  or  rub- 
bish which  covered  it  were  removed,  and  the  tomb 
exposed  to  view.  It  stood  on  a  plain,  between  two 
slightly  elevated  ridges  of  rock.  Near  it,  in  one  of 
these  ridges,  were  other  rock-hewn  tombs,  showing 
that  this  was  an  ancient  place  of  graves.  The  other 
ridge  to  the  eastward  presented  a  bluff,  a  spur  of 
rough  rock,  standing  up  about  fifteen  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  ground  between  it  and  the  sepulchre. 
This  rock  was  rent  in  two  by  a  great  rift,  yet  it  was 
a  majestic  point,  and  may  have  been,  as  it  was  then 
understood  to  be,  the  place  of  the  crucifixion. 


INVENTION    OF    THE    CROSS. 

But  the  desire  of  the  Emperor  Constantine  was 
not  wholly  accomplished.  The  sepulchre  had  not 
been  looked  for,  and  its  discovery  was  a  surprise. 
The  cross  was  yet  to  be  found,  and  the  search  was 
pursued  by  the  Empress.  The  ridge,  on  which  was 
the  place  of  the  crucifixion,  extended  eastward  to- 
ward the  old  wall  of  the  city,  and  Helena  was  told 
by  the  resident  Christians  that,  as  the  crucifixion 
occurred  on  the  eve  of  the  Sabbath,  the  people  had 
hurried  the  removal  of  the  tree  and  all  traces  of  the 
execution  ;  that  the  cross  had  been  thrown  into  a  pit 
which  was  under  the  side  of  this  same  ledge  of  rock, 
where,  being  an  unclean  piece  of  wood,  not  to  be 
touched,  it  had  been  covered  over  and  left,  and  where 
it  would  probably  be  found.  Against  this  statement 
is  placed  the  supposed  Hebrew  custom  of  burning 
crosses  after  crucifixions,  and  the  improbability  that 
an  exception  was  made  in  this  instance.  But  Helena 
caused  the  spot  to  be  excavated.     She  found  there 

sundry  pieces  of  wood. 

(43) 


VI. 


DOUBTS. 

Thus  far  history.  Here,  unquestionably,  was  the 
opportunity  for  imposture  ;  and  if  there  were  any 
pre-arranged  deception,  it  was  at  this  point  that 
Helena  was  deceived.  Her  own  sincerity  is  not  ques- 
tionable. The  deep  hole  under  the  side  of  the  ledge 
of  natural  rock,  descending  far  below  the  level  of  the 
church  floor,  in  which  she  found  the  wood,  is  known 
as  the  Chapel  of  the  Invention  of  the  Cross.  While 
other  writers  of  Church  history,  who  were  not  pres- 
ent, record  this  account  of  the  discovery  of  the  cross, 
Eusebius  —  who  was  in  Jerusalem  at  this  time,  or 
soon  after,  and  who  wrote  very  much  in  his  Life  of 
Constantine  about  all  that  was  done  by  the  Emperor 
through  Helena  in  Jerusalem  —  is  silent  on  this  sub- 
ject. This  fact  is  suspicious.  Did  Eusebius  doubt 
the  honesty  of  those  who  led  the  Empress  to  this 
discovery  ?  That  she  did  find  the  wood  is  beyond 
dispute,  for  the  world  rang  with  the  story.  Why, 
then,  did  the  Bishop  of  Caesarea  omit  to  record  the 
event  ?     And   it  is  also  proper  here  to  notice  the 

general  silence  of  any  cotemporaries  of  Helena  on 
(44) 


DOUBTS 


45 


this  subject,  from  which  a  strong  argument  is  ad- 
duced against  the  whole  story  of  the  discovery.  This 
is  certainly  an  argument  against  the  verity  of  the 
wood  ;  but  the  unanimous  assent  of  Church  histo- 
rians immediately  after  this  period,  the  universal 
acceptation  of  the  fact  by  the  Fathers  and  the  whole 
Christian  world,  leave  no  room  for  doubt  that  the  dis- 
covery was  made.  There  is  no  extant  account  of 
the  discovery  immediately  cotemporary  with  that 
event.  If  any  such  accounts  were  written,  they  are 
among  the  innumerable  lost  manuscripts.  The  ear- 
liest notice,  however,  is  only  about  twenty  years  later, 
by  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  and  from  this  time  nearly  all 
the  historians  and  Fathers  whose  works  are  extant  de- 
scribe, or  allude  to  it  as  a  historical  fact.  Jerome 
ridiculed  the  idea  of  Constantine  in  his  attempt  to 
connect  the  discovery  with  the  prophecy  of  Zecha- 
riah,  but  did  not  doubt  the  fact  of  the  discovery. 
No  historical  event  could  be  much  better  attested. 
We  may  easily  believe  that  Eusebius  was  an  unbe- 
liever in  the  verity  of  the  wood,  and  as  he  is  a  very 
trustworthy  authority,  his  silence  on  a  subject  of  such 
importance  must  be  regarded  as  significant.  I  think 
it  a  fair  statement  of  the  case  to  say  that,  if  Euse- 
bius  were  found  united  with  the  other  Fathers  in 


46  DOUBTS. 

relating  the  facts  and  accepting  the  verity  of  the 
wood,  it  would  be  difficult  for  an  impartial  student 
of  history  to  doubt  the  fact  of  its  verity.  The  total 
silence  of  Eusebius,  vastly  more  important  than  would 
have  been  the  silence  of  any  other  historian,  leaves 
the  subject  of  the  authenticity  of  the  wood  in  suspi- 
cious doubt. 

There  is  one  possible  exception  to  this  general  si- 
lence. The  Emperor  Constantine,  after  learning  of 
the  discoveries  in  Jerusalem,  wrote  to  Macarius, 
Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  instructing  him  as  to  the  church 
to  be  built  over  the  holy  places,  and  leaving  the  plan 
very  much  to  the  discretion  of  the  Bishop.  He  be- 
gan this  letter  with  expressions  of  gratitude  to  God 
for  the  wonderful  discovery  of  "  the  token  "  of  the 
passion  of  Christ,  which  had  lain  so  long  concealed, 
and  was  now  discovered.  This  has  been  commonly 
thought  to  be  a  reference  to  the  sepulchre,  but  it  may 
equally  well  refer  to  the  cross ;  and  the  instructions 
which  follow,  for  a  glorious  building,  certainly  seem 
to  have  been  understood  by  Macarius  as  referring  to 
the  cross  and  the  place  of  crucifixion  rather  than  to 
the  tomb.  For  the  church  was  built,  not  over  the 
sepulchre,  but  over  the  place  where  the  cross  was 
found  and  over  Calvary,  the  sepulchre  being  left  in 


FESTIVAL  DA  YS.  47 

the  open  court  in  front.  It  is  also  probable  that  the 
"  Exaltation  of  the  Cross "  commemorated  in  the 
Church  by  the  annual  festival  of  September  14th,  was 
an  important  part  of  the  ceremony  of  the  dedication 
of  the  Basilica,  in  A.D.  335.  This  festival  is  known  in 
Jerusalem  as  early  as  the  beginning  of  the  next 
century.  Sophronius  (7th  century)  speaks  of  it  as 
"in  ancient  times"  preceding  the  feast  of  the  anasta- 
sis  (the  restoration),  but  it  wa^  afterward  changed 
to  the  14th.  It  is  certainly  a  very  old  festival,  men- 
tioned in  various  Martyrologies  ;  and  the  restoration 
of  the  cross  by  Heraclius,  to  be  hereafter  described, 
was  probably  arranged  to  be  on  the  day  of  that  fes- 
tival. 

The  Feast  of  the  Invention  of  the  Cross,  on  May 
3d,  is  said  to  have  been  ordered  by  Silvester  I.,  who 
died  in  335,  the  year  of  the  dedication  of  the  church, 
but  it  is  not  certain  that  this  day  was  observed  until 
the  eighth  century. 

(The  Greek  and  Ethiopic  Churches  celebrate  May 
7th  as  the  day  when  a  miraculous  apparition  of  a 
cross  was  said  to  be  seen  over  Jerusalem  in  346. 
Cyril  of  Jerusalem  mentioned  it  in  a  letter  to  Con- 
stantine  written  a  few  years  later). 


VII. 


THE     WOOD     AND     THE     NAILS. 

There  were  found  in  the  excavation  more  than 
one  cross,  and  the  Fathers,  on  whose  accounts  we  now 
depend,  do  not  agree  as  to  the  means  of  identifying 
the  cross  of  our  Lord  and  distinguishing  it  from  the 
crosses  of  the  two  thieves.  Chrysostom  and  Am- 
brose say  that  the  title,  or  a  part  of  it,  remained 
attached  to  the  cross.  Another  writer  states  that 
the  true  cross  was  identified  by  carrying  it  to  a  sick 
woman,  who  was  healed  by  touching  it.  The  latter 
account,  subsequently  suiting  the  veneration  which 
the  Church  entertained  for  the  cross,  was  generally 
accepted  as  the  manner  in  which  the  true  wood  was 
verified.  The  age  of  miracles  was  not  then  sup- 
posed to  be  past.  It  was  not  long  since  handker- 
chiefs, which  had  touched  the  apostles,  had  been  car- 
ried to  the  sick  and  cured  them.  It  was  therefore 
not  strange  that  the  people  believed  that  the  wood 
which  had  been  dyed  with  the  blood  of  their  Lord 
should  also  heal  disease.  Among  the  wood  found, 
either  attached  to  a  cross  or  separate,  was  a  fragment 

of  a  tablet  on  which  was  part  of  the  inscription  or- 
(48) 


THE  NAILS. 


49 


dered  by  Pilate.  Several  nails  were  also  found  ;  it  is 
not  certain  how  many.  Only  two  are  definitely  men- 
tioned in  some  of  the  accounts,  but  other  writers 
speak  of  three  and  of  four,  and  of  nails  used  for  the 
tablet  inscription. 

There  was  a  difference  of  opinion  in  the  early 
Church  as  to  the  number  of  nails  and  the  position  of 
the  feet  of  the  Lord.  They  were  sometimes  repre- 
sented as  nailed  separately  and  sometimes  crossed 
and  pierced  with  one  nail.  Cyprian,  Augustine,  Greg- 
ory of  Tours,  Innocent  III.,  Theodoret,  and  Rufi- 
nus  all  say  that  four  nails  were  used,  two  for  the 
hands  and  two  for  the  feet. 

A  very  interesting  discussion  has  arisen  in  refer- 
ence to  the  nails  of  the  cross.  The  words  of  the 
Lord  to  Thomas  clearly  show  that  his  hands  were 
pierced  by  the  nails ;  but  whether  the  feet  were 
pierced  or  only  bound  to  the  cross  by  cords,  has  been 
a  question.  Christian  writers  believe  that  the  feet 
were  nailed,  differing  as  to  their  position  and  the 
■number  of  nails.  Opponents  of  Christianity  have 
denied  that  there  is  any  evidence  of  this.  The  dis- 
cussion was  interesting  mainly  as  bearing  on  the 
prophetic  passage  :  "  They  pierced  my  hands  and  my 
feet,"  and  also  because  the  assertion  has  been  made 
3 


50 


J  HE  NAILS. 


by  infidel  writers  that  the  death  of  Christ  was  only 
apparent,  and  not  real,  and  that  the  resurrection  was 
not  miraculous.  It  is  manifest  that  if  his  feet  were 
wounded  with  nails,  the  walk  to  Emmaus  on  the 
day  of  the  resurrection  would  have  been  impossible 
unless  the  resurrection  was  a  miracle.  When  He 
appeared  to  his  disciples.  He  said,  "  See  my  hands 
and  my  feet,  that  is  I  myself,"  thus  apparently  call- 
ing their  attention  to  the  wounds  in  both.  The  men- 
tion of  his  feet  could  have  been  for  no  other  reason. 
The  testimony  of  Justin  Martyr,  however,  is  conclu- 
sive. He  lived  and  wrote  in  the  second  century. 
His  conversion  to  Christianity  was  in  A.D.  132.  He 
was  learned  and  accomplished — a  Platonist.  It  is  not 
impossible  or  improbable  that  he  had  known  and  con- 
versed with  many  who  were  present  at  the  crucifixion. 
He  describes  the  literal  fulfillment  of  prophecy  in  the 
fact  of  the  pierced  feet.  His  evidence  is  uncontra- 
dicted, and  sufficient  even  without  the  confirmation  it 
receives  from  Tertullian. 

Now,  whether  these  pieces  of  wood  which  Helena 
found  were  ingeniously  prepared  by  the  Christian 
residents  of  Jerusalem  to  deceive  her  and  Constan- 
tine,  or  whether  the  Emperor  himself,  having  in  view 
his  favorite  sign  of  the  cross,  and  a  determination  to 


TELEGRAPHIC  TRADITION-.  51 

make  use  of  the  Christian  faith,  had  arranged  the 
whole  spectacle  of  this  discovery,  or  whether  the 
simple  fact  was  that  the  cross  had  lain  buried  there, 
and  was  found  where  the  Christians  said  it  was,  every 
reader  must  decide  for  himself. 

The  Roman  world  believed  it,  and  the  faith  that 
had  carried  the  labarum  to  victory  was  transferred 
with  ten-fold  force  to  the  wood  of  the  cross  itself. 

The  discovery  of  those  old  pieces  of  wood  in  Jeru- 
salem shook  the  world  with  an  emotion  scarce  ever 
before  experienced. 


VIII. 

A    TELEGRAPHIC    TRADITION. 

All  along  the  coast  of  the  Levant,  on  various 
prominent  headlands,  are  remains  of  old  towers, 
which  are  pointed  out  with  singular  agreement  of 
traditions  as  built  by  order  of  Constantine,  to  be 
used  in  conveying  from  Jerusalem  to  Byzantium  the 
intelligence  of  the  discovery  of  the  cross.  If  this 
tradition  be  correct,  there  is  a  clear  implication  that 


52 


TELEGRAPHIC   TRADITIO^T. 


the  Emperor  had  confidence  in  the  search,  and  had 
arranged  for  tlie  sensation  which  sliould  follow  it. 
True,  this  may  have  been  honestly  done,  the  prepara- 
tion being  based  on  information  obtained  from  Jeru- 
salem, that  if  any  authorized  agent  of  the  empire 
could  remove  Hadrian's  temple  he  would  certainly 
find  the  cross. 

Finding  no  account  of  it,  I  can  only  state  the  fact 
that  in  several  voyages  along  the  coast  of  the  Levant, 
I  have  noticed  old  towers  on  the  headlands,  and  on 
asking  what  they  were,  received,  at  different  places 
and  times,  from  Oriental  Christians,  the  same  reply 
that  they  were  built  for  watch-towers  to  signal  the 
discovery  of  the  cross.  This  is  very  likely  to  be  an- 
other of  those  countless  traditions  in  the  East  which 
are  connected,  without  reason,  with  the  Empress 
Helena.  For  pretty  much  every  old  church  and 
building  of  every  kind,  about  which  nothing  is 
known,  is  assigned  to  her  in  Eastern  Christian  tra- 
dition. But  it  is  a  grand  old  notion,  and  many  a 
night  on  those  seas,  I  have  imagined  that  signal 
flashing  along  the  headlands. 

There  was  no  Morse  then,  and  no  telegraphic  wires 
were  laid,  to  be  the  thrilling  nerves  along  which  the 
news  of  the  discovery  should  spread  through  all  the 


TELEGRAPHIC  TRADITION.  53 

Christian  body.  But  when  the  shout  went  up  above 
the  walls  of  Jerusalem  that  the  cross  was  found,  they 
lit  the  signal  fire  on  the  tower  of  David  on  Mount 
Zion.  Far  off  at  Ramah,  where  Samuel  had  once 
dwelt,  a  watcher,  with  eye  fixed  on  Jerusalem,  saw 
the  light  and  touched  his  beacon.  On  the  hill  of 
Omri,  Samaria  the  strong,  they  saw  the  flames,  and 
kindled  their  own  to  speed  the  tidings.  The  cedar 
wood  blazed  high  on  Lebanon.  Berytus  flashed  it  on 
to  Tripoli,  and  Tripoli  to  Antioch,  city  of  the  Chris- 
tian name.  Then  across  the  gulf  to  Tarsus,  and  the 
flame  gleamed  from  Mount  Taurus  on  the  cold  waves 
of  the  Cydnus  and  leaped  on  to  Laodicea  and  to  Sar- 
dis.  Pactolus  was  never  so  golden  as  in  that  mid- 
night light,  gleaming  over  the  white  walls  of  the  al- 
ready crumbling  temple  of  Cybele.  From  island  to 
island  it  fled  along  the  yEgean  Sea.  From  the  hills 
of  Lesbos,  where  the  wine  flowed  red  and  foaming, 
they  saw  it  who  watched  on  Mount  Ida,  many-foun- 
tained  Ida,  and  the  plain  of  Troy,  and  the  yellow 
waters  of  Scamander  were  lit  with  the  ruddy  glow. 
Far  Olympus,  crowned  with  eternal  snow,  Olympus 
of  Bithynia,  caught  the  news,  and  the  blaze  on  his 
summit  shone  over  the  Propontis,  even  to  the  win- 
dow where  the  Roman  Emperor  sat  in  the  solemn 


54 


GREAT  RESULTS. 


night,  and  then  the  shout  that  had  gone  up  an  hour 
before  in  Jerusalem,  was  echoed  and  re-echoed  a  hun- 
dred times  by  the  myriads  who  thronged  the  mid- 
night streets  of  the  new  Imperial  City.  The  cross 
was  found.     Yes,  they  believed  it. 

We  could  have  believed  it  then  ourselves,  but  these 
are  colder  times.  While  men  speak  eloquently  about 
the  great  battles  of  the  world,  they  might  speak  more 
eloquently  about  smaller  events  no  less  decisive. 
What  a  discovery  that  lot  of  old  wood  was !  No  man 
can  tell  what  great  effects  may  proceed  from  small 
causes ;  and  if  you  seek  the  origins  of  the  world's 
great  changes,  you  will  find  them  often  in  very 
small  incidents.  An  old  woman,  digging  for  old 
wood  in  a  hole  in  Jerusalem,  was  digging  the  graves 
of  millions  of  her  fellow-creatures,  digging  under  the 
foundations  of  empires  yet  to  be,  digging  the  path- 
way to  power  for  future  monarchs,  digging  the  very 
canals  and  railroads  of  modern  civilization.  Who 
can  tell  what  might  have  been  the  history  of  the 
world,  if  Helena  had  never  found  the  cross? 


IX. 

THE     KIND    OF    WOOD. 

Not  a  little  was  written  by  the  early  Christians  on 
the  wood  of  the  cross,  its  origin,  and  Its  character. 
Various  traditions  became  popular  as  to  the  growth 
of  the  wood  and  the  place  of  its  growth.  A  mile  or 
two  west  of  Jerusalem,  in  a  valley  among  the  hills,  is 
a  Greek  monastery,  recently  repaired  and  put  in  or- 
der, where  boys  receive  a  free  education.  It  is  one 
of  the  best  regulated  and  most  useful  of  all  the  chari- 
ties of  the  churches  in  and  around  the  holy  city. 
This  is  the  Monastery  of  the  Holy  Cross.  The  build- 
ings are  very  old,  some  of  them  very  fine.  The  foun- 
dation dates  from  an  early  period,  not  long  after  the 
discovery  of  the  cross  by  Helena,  and  the  tradition 
of  the  establishment  Is  that  it  stands  on  the  spot 
where  the  tree  grew  from  which  the  cross  was  cut. 
The  determining  such  a  spot,  and  ijiarking  it  by  a 
monument  at  a  time  like  that,  is  an  Indication  of  the 
veneration  for  localities  which  the  early  Christians 
exhibited.  The  world  was  vibrating  with  the  news 
that  the  cross  was  found,  and  It  met  the  locality-lov- 
ing spirit  of  the  times  to  find  and  announce  the  place 

where  the  wood  grew.     So  it  was  done. 

(55) 


56 


THE   WOOD. 


Then  began  questions  as  to  the  genealogy  of  the 
tree.  How  came  this  wood  ever  to  grow?  Whence 
was  it  that  on  some  bright  morning,  long  ago,  among 
the  wild  flowers  that  carpet  Holy  Land,  a  bud  should 
burst  the  ground,  put  forth  its  small  leaves,  and 
struggle  up  into  the  life  and  atmosphere,  only  to  be 
the  bearer  of  the  heaviest  load  of  sin  and  agony  ever 
borne  by  wood  of  earthly  growth  ? 

Many  traditions  obtained  circulation  on  this  sub- 
ject, not  devoid  of  interest.  Most  of  them  were  vari- 
ations of  one  which  may  be  thus  given  in  its  simplest 
form : 

When  Adam,  wearied  with  a  thousand  years  of 
toil,  sank  on  the  earth,  exhausted  and  ready  to  die, 
he  sent  Seth  to  the  angel  who  kept  the  way  of  Eden, 
to  beg  of  him  balm  from  the  garden,  wherewith  to 
anoint  his  limbs.  But  the  angel  refused  the  balm, 
and  only  gave  to  Seth  three  seeds  of  the  apple  from 
the  tree  of  forbidden  fruit,  and  commanded  him, 
when  Adam  should  be  dead,  to  put  those  seeds  under 
his  tongue  and  bury  him ;  promising  him  that  from 
those  seeds  should  spring  a  tree  that  should  bear 
fruit  whereby  Adam  should  be  saved  and  live  again. 
From  them  did  spring  three  trees,  of  which  the  wood 
of  the  cross  was  made;  He  who  died  on  it  being  the 
promised  fruit  the  tree  should  bear. 


TRADITIONS. 


57 


This  legend  had  numerous  variations.  A  cutting 
of  the  tree  is  spoken  of,  instead  of  the  seeds,  which 
was  planted  by  Seth  on  Adam's  grave.  The  rod  of 
Moses  was  cut  from  this  tree.  Solomon  hewed  down 
the  tree  to  make  a  beam  or  pillar  of  the  temple  from 
its  wood,  but  it  would  not  fit.  The  Queen  of  Sheba 
refused  to  go  near  it,  prophesying  that  it  would  bring 
destruction  to  the  Hebrews.  Solomon  cut  it  away 
and  had  it  buried.  The  pool  of  Bethesda  was  near 
its  place  of  burial,  and  received  its  healing  qualities 
from  this  fact.  The  wood  floated  to  the  surface  of 
the  water  during  the  trial  of  Christ,  and  was  taken 
for  the  upright  beam  of  the  cross. 

Variations  of  this  legend  abounded  in  what  is  now 
well  called  the  folk-lore  of  various  European  peoples. 
The  aspen  tree  was  accused  of  trembling  because  the 
cross  was  of  aspen  wood.  In  England  a  notion  has 
been  heard  of,  how  extensively  we  know  not,  that  the 
wood  was  mistletoe,  then  a  tree,  but  ever  since  a  par- 
asite. Maundeville  (fourteenth  century)  speaks  of  a 
tree  which  was  still  lying  as  a  bridge  over  the  Ke- 
dron,  ''  of  which  the  cross  was  made." 

The  early  writers  were  fond  of  finding  the  cross 
prefigured.  Justin  Martyr  sees  it  in  the  paschal  lamb, 
spitted  with  crossing  spits,  (Dial.  c.  Tryph.)  In  the 
3* 


58  TYPES  OF  THE  CROSS. 

Epistle  of  Barnabas  (c.  xi.),  it  was  said  that  at  the 
battle  of  Rephidim  the  Holy  Spirit  caused  Moses  to 
make  the  sign  of  the  cross  in  holding  up  his  hands, 
and  in  the  same  chapter  the  passage  in  2  Esdras,  v.  5, 
*'  and  blood  shall  drop  out  of  the  wood,"  is  cited  as 
prophetical  of  the  cross.  Jacob's  ladder,  the  waving 
of  the  sacrificial  offerings  in  the  temple,  various  atti- 
tudes of  men  in  ordinary  labor,  all  were  brought  to 
notice  as  types  of  the  cross.  "  Birds  in  flying,"  said 
Jerome,  "  make  the  sign  of  the  cross  ;  a  man  swim- 
ming or  praying  takes  the  form  of  the  cross."  It  may 
be  curious  to  note  here,  that  although  that  superb 
constellation,  the  Southern  Cross,  must  have  been 
well  known  to  Christians  of  the  Thebaid  and  farther 
northward,  we  find  no  definite  allusion  to  it  in  any 
of  the  early  Christian  writers. 

The  Venerable  Bede,  writing  in  the  fifth  century, 
says  the  cross  was  of  four  kinds  of  wood — cypress, 
cedar,  pine,  and  box.  John  Cantacuzenus  asserted 
the  same.  Innocent  says  the  upright  was  one  wood, 
the  transverse  beam  another,  the  title  a  third,  and 
the  feet  were  supported  on  a  projecting  step  made 
of  a  fourth  wood. 

Others  assert  that  the  cross  was  of  cypress,  cedar, 
palm,  and  Dlive-wood. 


THE   WOOD.  59 

Lipsius,  the  most  learned  and  exhaustive  writer  on 
the  subject,  thinks,  with  reason,  that  the  cross  was 
oak — a  wood  abounding  in  the  country,  easily  pro- 
cured, and  strong  for  the  purpose.  He  thinks  such 
relics  as  he  had  seen  were  oak. 

The  most  careful  examination  that  I  have  been 
able  to  make  of  some  of  the  larger  fragments  which 
still  exist,  leads  me  to  think  that  the  wood  was  oak. 
The  tablet  at  Santa  Croce  in  Rome,  which,  there  is  no 
reason  to  doubt,  is  that  found  by  the  Empress,  had  at 
first  glance  the  appearance  of  old  olive-wood ;  but  on 
closer  and  careful  examination  with  a  glass,  I  was  in- 
clined to  regard  it  as  oak.  The  Vienna  fragments  are 
very  like  old  oak.  But  all  the  fragments  I  have  seen  are 
so  discolored,  and  their  surface  grain  is  so  disintegra- 
ted by  time  and  changes  of  temperature,  that  no  one 
can  assert  with  much  confidence  what  species  of 
wood  any  of  them  are. 

There  are  very  few  fragments  anywhere  which  pro- 
fess to  be  relics  of  the  Holy  Cross.  The  common  idea 
that  enough  wood  is  shown  in  various  places  as  relics 
of  the  true  cross  to  build  a  dozen  crosses,  is  a  very 
foolish  error,  invented  by  some  one  who  imagined 
that  when  a  church  claimed  to  possess  a  piece  of  the 
true  cross,  it  must  be  a  piece  of  at  least  some  feet  in 


6o  CON  STAN  TINE. 

length  and  solid  contents.  Generally  speaking,  that 
very  rare  and  highly-prized  relic,  '*  a  piece  of  the  true 
cross,"  whether  possessed  by  a  church,  a  crowned 
head,  or  a  private  individual,  is  a  minute  speck  of 
wood,  scarcely  visible  to  the  naked  eye,  set  some- 
times on  an  ivory  tablet,  always  enclosed  in  a  costly 
reliquaire. 

No  other  fragment  is  known  so  large  as  the  Santa 
Croce  tablet,  which  is  not  ten  inches  long  by  sev- 
en wide.  There  are  but  very  few  fragments  known 
which  are  large  enough  to  be  called  pieces  of  wood. 
Leaving  out  the  Santa  Croce  tablet,  all  the  relics  of 
the  Holy  Cross,  claimed  to  be  such,  that  I  have  been 
able  to  hear  of  in  all  the  world,  if  gathered  into  one 
piece,  would  not  make  another  block  of  wood  as 
large  as  the  Santa  Croce  tablet.  This  tablet  is  not 
generally  spoken  of  as  a  part  of  the  cross  itself. 


X. 

CONSTANTIN  E. 


Helena  sent  to  Constantine  a  piece  of  the  wood 
and  several  of  the  nails.  We  say  "  several,"  for  the 
number  is   uncertain.     Rufinus   says   that   she   sent 


THE  NAILS.  6 1 

"Clavos, ex  quibus   ille  frenos  composuit 

quibus  uteretur  ad  bellum.  Et  ex  aliis  galeam,  etc." 
It  would  require  three,  and  perhaps  four,  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  this  statement,  which,  however,  was 
probably  not  intended  to  be  accurate.  Whether 
these  were  sent  immediately  after  the  discovery,  or 
delayed  a  year  or  more,  does  not  appear.  Constan- 
tine  was  doubtless  then  in  Byzantium  or  Nicomedia, 
planning  the  royal  city  of  Constantinople.  He  di- 
rected the  wood  to  be  placed  in  the  head  of  a  statue 
of  himself,  to  adorn  the  new  capitol.  He  used  part 
of  the  nails  for  a  helmet,  and  one  or  more  of  them 
for  ornaments  on  the  bridle  of  his  horse,  in  fulfill- 
ment of  the  prophecy  of  Zechariah,  which  foretold  a 
universal  gathering  of  the  Church  when  "  Holiness  to 
the  Lord  "  shall  be  on  the  bridles  of  the  horses.  This 
fact  illustrates  the  determination  of  Constantine  to 
make  every  possible  use  of  the  influence  of  the  cross, 
natural  or  supernatural,  for  he  thus  made  his  stand- 
ard, his  helmet,  and  his  war-horse  alike  bearers  of  the 
talisman.  And  the  helmet  and  war-horse  of  this 
emperor  had  not  been,  and  were  not  likely  to  be, 
kept  for  peaceful  show. 

What  became  of  these  or  of  the  other  nails,  if  any, 
reserved  by  Helena,  it  is  impossible  to  say.     State- 


62  CONSTANTINE. 

ments  and  traditions  innumerable  are  found  in  all 
ages  since,  but  they  are  so  inconsistent  and  contra- 
dictory, they  require  so  many  nails  to  satisfy  us  of 
their  possible  truth,  that  the  conclusion  is  irresistible 
that  the  history  of  the  original  nails  found  can  not 
be  traced.  Crowns  that  have  claimed  to  be  banded 
with  their  iron  have  no  historical  genealogy  on  which 
we  can  depend,  and  we  therefore  abandon  them  as 
hopelessly  lost.  The  iron  crown  of  Monza,  commonly 
supposed  to  have  a  band  made  from  one  of  the  nails, 
has  no  title  to  such  a  claim.  This  is  an  old  crown, 
but  three  hundred  years  ago  this  tradition  was  not 
attached  to  it. 

There  is  no  question  in  history  more  perplexing, 
scarcely  any  more  interesting,  than  this,  of  the  motives 
inducing  the  whole  conduct  of  Constantine  with 
reference  to  Christianity.  Retaining  the  old  idea  of 
the  pagan  emperors  that  the  religion  and  its  priests 
were  subjects  of  the  imperial  command,  he  regulated 
Church  matters  without  himself  entering  the  Church. 
He  was  not  even  baptized  until  in  the  last  hours  of 
his  life  ;  yet  he  judged  the  Arian  controversy,  and  re- 
vised his  judgment,  approved  the  Council  of  Nice, 
and  denounced  all  who  should  not  adopt  the  Nicene 
Creed,  made  the  cross  his  standard,  and  abolished  for 


CONSTANTINE.  63 

it  the  imperial  eagles.  But  apparently,  at  the  very 
time  when  he  was  publishing  "  Holiness  to  the  Lord  " 
on  his  bridle,  he  was  absorbed  in  jealousy  of  his  son 
and  heir,  Crispus,  whom  he  foully  and  secretly  put  to 
death  (a.D.  326).  His  personal  character  gives  no 
indications  of  the  refining  and  elevating  influence  of 
the  faith  he  upheld.  He  died,  leaving  the  empire 
nominally  Christian,  but  his  death  was  the  signal  for 
the  barbarian  character  of  his  race  to  manifest  itself. 
He  had  murdered  his  oldest  son,  best  of  the  family, 
and  his  nephew,  Licinius ;  he  had  murdered  his  wife 
of  twenty  years.  His  successor,  her  second  son, 
Constantius,  before  his  two  brothers  could  arrive  on 
the  scene,  destroyed  in  one  horrible  massacre  nearly 
all  others  that  were  left  of  the  blood  of  the  first 
Christian  emperor. 

If  we  knew  more  of  the  religious  character  of  the 
age  in  which  Constantine  lived,  we  might  better  judge 
whether  the  pagan  faith  had  become  so  vague  as  to 
amount  to  no  faith  at  all,  and  thus  the  time  grown 
well  suited  for  the  emperor  to  adopt  and  foster  a  re- 
ligion whose  purity  and  power  he  recognized.  He 
was  a  man  of  gre  t  ability.  The  Decree  of  Milan 
was  a  bold  and  successful  stroke  of  policy.  The 
restoration  of  all  Christian  rights   and  property,  star- 


64  CONSTjyTIArE, 

tling  as  it  was  to  those  who  had  but  lately  been  under 
the  heel  of  Diocletian,  attached  to  the  new  monarch 
every  Christian  in  the  empire.  He  could  see  that 
here  was  an  opportunity  to  recover  for  himself  that 
religious  power  which  former  emperors  wielded  when 
pagan  faith  was  a  power,  but  which  ceased  to  exist 
when  men  cared  nothing  for  religion  or  its  altars. 
Was  it,  then,  the  sagacious  politician,  the  wily  states- 
man, who  resolved  to  take  this  new  religion,  gather 
to  it  the  infidel,  atheist  masses  in  all  parts  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  wield  the  power  thus  created  ? 
Was  the  story  of  the  vision  and  the  '^  in  hoc  signo 
vinces  "  w^iich  he  told  to  Eusebius  only  a  revival  of 
the  same  sort  of  story  which  had  helped  his  predeces- 
sors in  the  early  days  of  Rome  to  keep  their  follow- 
ers in  hand,  by  convincing  them  of  the  direct  favor 
of  the  gods  ?  Was  the  mission  of  Helena  to  Jerusalem 
to  seek  the  cross,  and  the  arrangement  for  her  to  find 
it,  all  a  part  of  the  same  cunning  plan  to  consolidate 
his  empire  by  the  aid  of  religious  enthusiasm? 

It  is  a  black  side  of  character  to  look  at,  and  it 
would  be  pleasanter  to  think  the  other  explanation 
true,  that  he  had  a  good  old  English  mother,  a  devout   . 
Christian,  who  taught  him  from  his  youth  up,  and 
whom  he  loved  and  kept  near  him  always ;  and  that 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  65 

in  all  that  he  did,  the  faith  and  teachings  of  his  mother 
were  dear  to  him,  and  that  to  her  influence  is  due  the 
subjection  of  the  Roman  Empire  to  Christianity.  But 
it  must  be  confessed  that  in  the  personal  character  of 
Constantine  there  is  very  little  to  admire. 

Our  subject,  rife  with  suggestions  to  the  honest 
student  of  history,  will  lead  him  in  weighing  the 
motives  of  Constantine,  to  observe  here  the  beginning 
of  the  relations  of  Church  and  State.  The  Roman 
emperors  had  wielded  all  the  power  of  the  religion. 
Constantine  made  Christianity  the  State  religion,  and 
used  it ;  perhaps  made  it  so  for  the  sake  of  using  it. 
Thus  the  Church  became  subject  to  the  State.  But 
later  the  Church  threw  off  the  yoke  and  subjugated 
the  State.  And  the  Roman  history  is  not  the  only 
instructive  history  of  this  kind.  The  absolute  divorce 
of  Church  and  State,  which  existed  before  the  days 
of  Constantine,  has  scarcely  since  that  day  been  seen 
except  in  America. 


XL 

lESUS     NA2ARENUS     REX     J U D A E O R U M . 

Among  the  pieces  of  wood  found  in  the  pit  was  a 
fragment  which  contained  parts  of  a  trilingual  inscrip- 
tion. This  fragment  Helena  conveyed  to  Rome. 
When  received  in  that  city,  parts  of  a  Greek,  of  a 
Latin,  and  parts  of  the  letters  of  a  HebreV  in- 
scription were  legible.  It  was  at  once  inclosed  in  a 
leaden  box. 

The  basilica  of  Santa  Croce  in  Jerusalemme  was 
erected  by  Constantine  to  receive  this  piece  of  wood. 
The  foundations  were  laid  in  earth  brought  from 
Jerusalem.  By  his  special  order  the  relic  was  de- 
posited above  the  vaulted  roof  of  the  church,  in  a 
sort  of  dead  window  which  was  walled  up.  A  mosaic 
inscription  recorded  its  place  of  deposit,  and  the 
church  which  bore  its  name  thus  preserved  it  for 
many  centuries. 

As  years  rolled  along  the  fate  of  Rome  changed, 

and  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Cross  (which,  although 

within  the  old  walls,  is  far  away  from  the   modern 

center  of  the  city,  and  actually  in  the  country)  was 

sadly  neglected  and  sank  into  obscurity.    The  mosaic 
(66) 


THE  IX SCRIP  TIOM.  ^y 

inscription  was  defaced,  and  became  illegible,  so  that 
at  length  it  was  only  a  tradition  that  the  church  pos- 
sessed this  piece  of  the  sacred  wood,  but  no  one 
could  point  it  out  among  the  relics  in  the  treasury- 
chamber.  High  up  over  the  walls  of  Rome,  in  silent 
obscurity,  while  intestine  quarrels  shook  the  capital, 
through  civil  v/ar  and  invasion,  through  all  the  suc- 
cession of  murder  and  shame  which  marked  the  his- 
tory 'of  the  Roman  Empire,  through  the  dark  and 
still  years  when  ruin  fell  on  old  Rome,  and  palace 
and  wall  crumbled  into  dust,  surmounting  the  fall- 
ing stones  of  the  old  city,  and  unaffected  by  its 
changing  dynasties  and  changing  inhabitants,  the 
wood  of  the  cross  remained  in  the  vaulted  roof  of 
Santa  Croce.  After  many  centuries,  some  workmen, 
repairing  the  old  church,  accidentally  broke  into  the 
walled-up  window,  and  found  the  leaden  chest.  Be- 
lieving that  they  had  found  treasure,  they  were  at 
the  first  disposed  to  conceal  the  box,  but  on  opening 
it  they  were  disappointed  at  sight  of  a  somewhat 
musty  and  very  ancient -looking  piece  of  wood. 
Little  did  they  imagine  the  splendor  of  that  w^ood, 
or  over  what  white  brow  the  faith  of  men  had  placed 
its  sacred  characters.  The  joy  of  Rome  when  it 
learned  of  the  discovery  was  great  beyond  descrip- 


68  THE  IN  SCRIP  now 

tion.  The  city  rang  with  the  shouts  of  the  people, 
and  the  title  of  scorn  which  the  derision  of  a  Ro- 
man Governor  invented  for  the  cross  of  the  victim, 
became  the  object  of  adoration  to  Rome  itself. 

Part  of  this  tablet  fragment  is  still  in  the  Church 
of  Santa  Croce  at  Rome.  The  appearance  is  that  of 
a  decayed  piece  of  board,  on  which  remain  traces  of 
inscriptions  in  three  languages.  The  Hebrew  is  quite 
illegible,  only  parts  of  a  few  letters  remaining  visible. 
I  am  not  aware  that  any  careful  examination  has 
been  made  of  this  old  piece  of  w^ood  in  modern 
times,  and  no  publication  which  I  have  been  able  to 
find  has  given  any  account  of  it  since  the  seventeenth 
century.  It  is  preserved  in  a  chapel,  behind  and 
above  the  high  altar  of  the  church,  access  to  which 
is  had  by  a  long  winding  passage  through  the  rear 
part  of  the  Basilica,  and  ascending  numerous  steps. 

I  owe  sincere  thanks  to  an  eminent  dignitary  of 
the  Church  who  procured  for  me  the  privilege  of 
examining  the  relic,  and  accompanied  me  one  pleas- 
ant afternoon  to  the  chapel  in  the  old  Basilica, 
which  has  so  long  been  its  guardian.  The  Greek 
Nazarenous  B-  and  the  Latin,  Nazarams  Re-  are  still 
legible.  Traces  of  Hebrew  letters  are  also  visible  on 
the  upper  edge  of  the  fragment.     They  are  cut  in 


-o  THE  inscription: 

the  wood,  not  written  on  it.  This  peculiarity  is 
worth  noticing :  that  the  Greek  word  {Nazarenous) 
is  wrongly  spelled,  and  both  the  Latin  and  Greek 
inscriptions  read  from  right  to  left,  after  the  Hebrew 
custom.  From  this  it  has  been  argued  that  a  He- 
brew did  the  work  for  Pilate.  Others  have  held  that 
the  workmanship  of  the  different  parts  is  so  diverse 
in  character  that  the  various  inscriptions  must  have 
been  cut  by  different  persons,  the  order  from  right  to 
left  being  selected  by  Pilate  because  his  inscription 
was  intended  to  be  in  some  sense  insulting  to  the 
Jews.  So  far  as  my  observation  extends,  no  one  has 
thought  of  denying  that  it  is  the  piece  of  wood  sent 
to  Rome  by  Helena,  for  the  reception  of  which  the 
original  Basilica  was  erected  in  the  year  331.  It 
is  annually  exhibited  with  great  pomp  on  Easter 
Sunday. 

Bonus,  de  Cruce  Triumphante,  gives  an  engrav- 
ing of  the  tablet,  and  from  him  it  would  appear  that 
the  board  was  painted  white  and  the  letters  were 
red.  Alban  Butler  says  it  was  so  when  the  leaden 
case  was  discovered  and  opened  (in  1492),  but 
that  these  colors  are  since  faded.^  I  can  scarcely 
credit  these  statements,  for  I  did  not  find  in   1870 


*  F.  C.  H.  in  N.  and  Q.,  2d  S.,  IX.  515. 


THE  INSCRIPTION. 


71 


any  trace  of  paint  on  the  wood,  the  color  and 
surface  presenting  the  appearance  of  very  ancient 
wood,  which  has  never  had  any  varnish  or  paint  on 
it.  The  letters  are  incised,  and  may  have  been 
painted  once,  but  seem  now  only  dark  on  account  of 
the  change  of  color  by  age.  Decay  invades  the 
inscription.  The  letter  N  in  Nazarenus  has  quite 
disappeared  in  the  dry  rot,  as  have  the  lower  parts 
of  the  letters  RE  in  the  same  word,  and  the  begin- 
ning of  Basileus  in  the  Greek,  and  of  Rex  in  the 
Latin.  The  illustration  will  show  what  portion  of 
the  entire  tablet  this  professes  to  be. 

I  made  a  rough  drawing  of  the  tablet  while  examin- 
ing it,  and  after  returning  to  my  hotel,  colored  it  from 
memory  ;  but  as  I  have  not  any  knack  at  such  use  of 
either  kind  of  pencil,  I  can  only  say  that  the  cut, 
which  I  present  herewith,  is  a  reduced  copy  of  my 
work  and  not  of  the  tablet,  of  which,  however,  it 
will  give  a  fair  idea.  The  picture  is  certainly  not 
without  interest,  since  it  represents  what  all  Chris- 
tians of  all  names  for  more  than  a  thousand  years 
believed  to  be  a  part  of  the  tablet  which  Pilate 
placed  above  the  head  of  Christ. 


XII. 

VERA     CRUX. 

The  principal  portion  of  the  wood,  now  and  al- 
ways afterward  known  as  Vera  Crux,  the  True  Cross, 
was  retained  by  Helena  in  Jerusalem  and  deposited 
in  the  great  church  or  basilica  erected  under  the 
order  of  Constantine  over  the  place  of  the  cruci- 
fixion and  burial,  and  dedicated  in  the  year  335. 
The  Church  of  the  Resurrection,  or,  as  it  is  com- 
monly called,  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre, 
now  in  Jerusalem,  occupies  the  same  site,  but  is 
vastly  more  extensive,  reaching  from  beyond  the 
Sepulchre  on  the  west  to  the  Chapel  of  the  Inven- 
tion of  the  Cross  on  the  extreme  east. 

For  three  hundred  years  the  cross  was  in  the  cus- 
tody of  the  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  and  was  annually 
exhibited  on  Easter  Sunday  to  the  pilgrims  who 
thronged  the  Holy  City.  From  time  to  time  persons 
of  large  wealth,  or  of  high  position,  were  permitted 
to  purchase  fragments,  small  splinters,  which  were 
carried  to  Europe  and  placed  in  monasteries,  abbeys, 

and    churches.     These   were   always    received   with 
(72) 


VEXILLA  REGIS. 


73 


great  veneration,  and  many  of  these  relics  doubtless 
remain  still  in  the  treasuries  of  European  religious 
establishments.  Tradition  began  to  say  that  the 
wood  constantly  replaced  itself  as  fast  as  splinters 
were  cut  from  it. 

To  some  of  these  fragments  we  Protestants  owe 
a  great  deal  more  than  most  of  us  imagine.  For 
this  old  wood  not  only  shook  empires,  but  it  warmed 
hearts  and  gave  to  the  world  some  of  its  most  highly 
valued  poetry  and  song. 

It  was  about  the  year  580  that  a  fragment  of  the 
wood  was  sent  to  France,  of  whose  history  we  know 
this,  that  it  gave  to  the  Christian  world  that  magnifi- 
cent hymn  of  the  Church,  ^^Vexilla  regis  prodeunt,'' 
which  in  its  original  form  and  in  translations  has 
moved  the  hearts  of  Christians  in  all  times  since. 

There  was  a  church  to  be  consecrated  at  Poictiers, 
in  France,  in  or  about  the  year  580,  and  Gregory  of 
Tours  had  received  certain  relics  to  be  there  placed. 
Venantius  Fortunatus  wrote  a  hymn,  which  Dr 
Neale  says  was  composed  on  the  occasion  of  the  re- 
ception of  these  relics.  This  hymn  was  one  of  those 
inspirations  which  enter  at  once  into  the  life  of  the 
Church — one  of  the  songs  which  men  grow  to  loving 
so  much,  vv'hich  become  so  sacred  by  reason  of  the 
4 


74 


VEX  ILL  A  REGIS. 


long  successions  of  generations  who  utter  them  in 
praise  and  prayer  that  we  believe  they  will  last  the 
Church  so  long  as  it  is  a  Church  militant,  and  we 
sometimes  think  may  be  part  of  the  utterances  to  be 
used  by  the  Church  Triumphant. 

It  is  obvious  from  the  hymn  that  the  chief  among 
the  relics  was  a  fragment  of  the  cross.  Let  us  intro- 
duce it  here  in  its  best  known  modern  form : 

Vexilla  regis  prodeunt : 
Fulget  crucis  mysterium. 
Qua  vita  mortem  pertulit, 
Et  morte  vitam  protulit. 

Quae  vulnerata  lanceae 
Mucrone  diro,  criminum 
Ut  nos  lavaret  sordibus, 
Manavit  unda  et  sanguine. 

Impleta  sunt,  quas  concinit 
David  fideli  carmine, 
Dicendo  nationibus : 
Regnavit  a  ligno  Deus. 

Arbor  decora  et  fulgida, 
Ornata  regis  purpura. 
Electa  digno  stipite 
Tarn  sancta  membra  tangere. 


VEX  ILL  A  REGIS.  75 

Beata,  cujus  brachiis 
Praetium  pependit  saeculi, 
Statera  facta  corporis 
Tulit  que  prccdam  tartari. 

O  crux  ave,  spes  unica, 
Hoc  passionis  tempore 
Piis  adauge  g:ratiam 
Reis  que  dele  crimina. 

Te,  fons  salutis,  Trinitas, 
Collaudet  omnis  spiritus : 
Quibus  crucis  victoriam 
Largiris,  adde  praemium. 

Instead  of  the  more  familiar  version  in  English,  of 
the  Vexilla  Regis,  we  select  that  of  Dr.  Neale,  whose 
wonderful  power  of  rendering  the  songs  of  the 
Church  in  word  and  spirit,  seems  almost  like  inspira- 
tion. 

The  Royal  banners  forward  go, 
The  cross  shines  forth  with  mystic  glow ; 
Where  He  in  flesh,  our  flesh  who  made, 
Our  sentence  bore,  our  ransom  paid. 

Where  deep  for  us  the  spear  was  dyed. 
Life's  torrent  rushing  from  his  side ; 
To  wash  us  in  the  precious  flood 
Where  mingled  watei  flowed  and  blood. 


'A 


VEXILLA  REGIS. 

Fulfilled  is  all  that  David  told 

In  true  prophetic  song  of  old  ; 

Amidst  the  nations,  God,  saith  he. 

Hath  reigned  and  triumphed  from  the  Tree. 

Oh,  tree  of  beauty,  tree  of  light ! 
Oh,  tree  with  royal  purple  dight  I 
Elect  upon  whose  faithful  breast 
Those  holy  limbs  should  find  their  rest  I 

On  whose  dear  arms,  so  widely  flung. 
The  weight  of  this  world's  ransom  hung 
The  price  of  humankind  to  pay 
And  spoil  the  spoiler  of  his  prey ! 

Oh,  cross,  our  one  reliance,  hail ! 
This  holy  passion-tide,  avail 
To  give  fresh  merit  to  the  saint 
And  pardon  to  the  penitent. 

To  thee  Eternal  Three  in  One 
Let  homage  meet  by  all  be  done ; 
Whom  by  the  cross  thou  dost  restore. 
Preserve  and  govern  evermore. 


The  last  two  stanzas  of  the  hymn  are  of  a  later 
period.  It  is  to  this  same  time  and  author,  and  to 
the  same  or  another  fragment  of  the  wood  that  we 
owe  that  other  glorious  hymn,  the  Pange  lingua  gloru 
osu  whose  refrain  has  so  moved  the  souls  of  men  in 


PANGE  LINGUA. 


77 


the  solemn  commemorations   of  Good   Friday.      A 
stanza  will  suffice  here. 

Pange  lingua  gloriosi 
Proelium  certaminis, 
Et  super  crucis  trophaso 
Die  triumphum  nobilem 
Qualiter  Redemptor  orbis 
Immolatus  vicerit. 

Crux  ficlelis,  inter  omnes 
Arbor  una  nobilis ; 
Nulla  silv^a  talem  profert, 
Fronde,  flore,  germine. 
Dulce  lignum,  dulces  clavos, 
Dulce  pondus  sustinet. 

Sing,  my  tongue,  the  Saviour's  glory, 

Tell  his  triumph  far  and  wide ; 

Tell  aloud  the  famous  story 

Of  his  body  crucified. 

How  upon  the  cross  a  victim 

Vanquishing  in  death,  He  died. 

Faithful  cross,  oh  tree  all  beauteous  ! 
Tree  all  peerless  and  divine  ! 
Not  a  grove  on  earth  can  show  us 
Such  a  flower  and  leaf  as  thine. 
Sweet  the  nails  and  sweet  the  wood 
Laden  with  so  sweet  a  load  ! 


78  A  FRAGMENT. 

In  a  curious  little  book,  published  in  Rome  in  1609, 
entitled  De  Particula  ex  PRETIOSO  ET  VIVIVICO 
LiGNO  Sacratissimae  Crucis,  etc.,  by  A.  F.  An- 
gelo  Rocca  Camerte,  an  Augustin,  who  was  prefect 
of  the  Apostolic  treasury,  we  find  an  account  of  a 
fragment  which  was  then  in  the  treasury.  This  was 
supposed  to  be  the  same  fragment  for  which  Leo  I. 
thanks  Juvenal,  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  in  one  of  his 
letters,  about  A.D.  450.  This  treatise  is  very  inter- 
esting, the  author  describing  various  small  fragments 
of  the  wood,  and  going  at  considerable  length  into 
the  discussion  of  the  nails,  their  number,  etc.,  and  the 
character  of  the  wood,  which,  from  such  relics  as  he 
had  seen,  he  believed,  with  Lipsius,  to  have  been 
oak. 

The  history  of  Jerusalem  and  its  sacred  places  and 
relics  during  the  three  centuries  after  Constantine  is 
very  obscure.  What  prayers  were  offered  before  that 
wood  in  those  years,  God  only  knows,  before  whom 
long  ago  the  worshipers  themselves  have  knelt  for 
judgment.  What  tears  have  fallen  on  the  rock  of 
Jerusalem  before  the  shrine  of  the  cross  in  those  days, 
they  best  know  whose  eyes  shut  on  the  griefs  of  life 
twelve  centuries  ago. 

In  the  seventh   century  Jerusalem    experienced  a 


CHOSROES. 


79 


succession  of  terrible  changes.  In  the  year  614  Chos- 
roes,  the  Persian,  descended  upon  Syria,  and  the  first 
great  event  in  the  history  of  the  wood  was  its  capture 
by  this  monarch  in  that  year.  The  repose  of  the 
reHc  in  Jerusalem  was  disturbed  by  the  approach  of 
his  host,  swollen  with  volunteer  Jews  and  Arabs,  alike 
desirous  to  be  revenged  on  the  hated  followers  of 
Christ  who  had  possession  of  the  Holy  City.  Fresh 
from  the  conquest  of  Asia  Minor,  and  eager  to  invade 
Egypt,  the  enemy  came  down  through  Galilee  with 
resistless  force,  and  threw  themselves  against  the  for- 
tifications of  Jerusalem. 

That  invasion  must  have  been  fierce  beyond  paral- 
lel. It  was  in  vain  for  walls  and  gates  to  oppose  the 
fierce  onslaught.  Forcing  their  way  into  the  city, 
they  carried  rapine  and  destruction  through  the 
streets,  which  were  not  unused  to  similar  scenes. 
Ninety  thousand  Christians  fell  fighting  in  the  Holy 
City  for  the  cross  of  Christ,  and  when  the  last  defend 
er  was  gone,  the  cross  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  in- 
fidel foe. 

I  am  tempted  to  pause  a  moment  and  relate  one  of 
those  thousand  legends  which,  founded  perhaps  on 
some  small  base  of  truth,  have  been  built  up  around 
the  story  of  this  wood.     I  have  no  knowledge  of  its 


8o  A   TRADITION. 

origin,  and  can  only  relate  it  as  I  heard  it,  sitting, 
one  sunny  day,  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  listening 
to  a  friend  whose  talk  abounded  in  such  traditions. 
He  was  eloquent  when  he  spoke  of  the  Greek  who 
fought  last  on  the  hill  of  Calvary  for  the  wood  of  the 
cross.  It  was  a  pet  subject  with  him.  I  wondered  if 
he  dreamed  it.     It  sounds  like  a  vision  of  the  night. 

That  Greek  was  a  giant,  \vho  appeared  among  the 
garrison  of  Jerusalem,  unknown  to  all.  He  might 
well  have  been  a  descendant  of  those  who  fought  with 
Leonidas  ;  he  was  a  fit  predecessor  to  Richard.  His 
sw^ord  was  like  the  sword  of  Goliah.  He  had  fought 
steadfastly  all  the  day,  and  with  his  own  arm  he  had 
slain  a  hundred  of  the  rabble  foe,  Jew  and  Gentile 
alike.  Wherever  he  appeared,  the  enemy  fell  like  grain 
before  the  sickle.  Retreating  slowly,  h^  had  at  last 
stationed  himself  at  the  door  of  the  Chapel  of  the 
Cross,  within  which  the  priests  were  bowed  in  prayer, 
and  here  for  a  long  time  his  single  arm  kept  back  a 
thousand  of  the  enemy.  Driven  at  length  within  the 
wall,  he  stood  erect  at  the  foot  of  the  cross,  now 
visible  to  the  eyes  of  the  foe,  and  when  they  had 
hewn  the  praying  priests  to  the  ground,  he  stood 
alone  to  fight  for  the  wood  of  Christ's  suffering.  They 
shrank  aghast  from  the  visage  that  flashed  through 


THE  CROSS  CAPTURED.  8 1 

his  armor.  His  eye  was  like  the  eye  of  an  angel. 
Lifting  between  his  clasped  hands  the  cross-hilt  of 
his  sword,  he  offered  up  a  prayer  to  Him  for  whom 
he  fought,  and  Christ  sent  down  his  angels  to  be  with 
him  in  the  conflict.  In  vain  they  pressed  on  him. 
One  sweep  of  his  strong  arm  cleared  the  circle  around 
him,  and  the  altar  was  ready  for  other  victims.  The 
night  came  down,  and  none  could  approach  the  cross, 
for  the  stout  warrior,  who,  with  God's  help,  yet  guard- 
ed it ;  and  when  the  gloom  was  too  thick  for  foe 
to  recognize  foe,  they  left  him  there,  alone,  triumph- 
ant, to  the  company  of  God  and  the  angels.  In  the 
morning  he  was  gone,  and  on  the  floor  of  the  chapel 
they  counted  of  the  slain  by  his  hand  twelve  chiefs 
and  forty-four  of  the  stoutest  soldiers  of  the  guard  of 
Chosroes.  Men  might  well  say  it  was  Michael  the 
Archangel  himself. 

Thus  much  of  tradition.  We  follow  veritable 
history. 

The  tide  of  battle  rolled  on  westward  and  north- 
ward, breaking  on  the  shores  of  the  sea  and  losing  it- 
self in  the  sands  of  the  Libyan  desert.  The  reign  of 
Persia  extended  from  the  pyramids  to  the  unknown 
wastes  of  Scythia,  and  the  victorious  monarch  retired 
beyond  the  Euphrates,  bearing   with   him  the  True 


82  THE  CROSS  CAPTURED. 

Cross  as  one  of  the  trophies  of  his  conquests.  It 
would  appear  that  its  preservation  was  due  to  the 
Christian  wife  of  Chosroes. 

Alas  for  Jerasalem  !  What  a  bloody  "  city  of  peace  " 
she  has  been  in  all  her  long  history !  War,  war  for- 
ever in  her  walls.  I  doubt  if  so  much  blood  has  been 
poured  out  on  any  other  city  pavement  from  Babylon 
to  Rome. 

Jerusalem  was  more  desolate  now  than  it  had  been 
since  the  captivity  of  the  Sons  of  Israel,  when  they 
were  led  away  beyond  the  rivers  of  Babylon.  The 
Church  of  the  Resurrection  was  in  ruins  over  the  sep- 
ulchre of  Christ,  and  the  personal  affliction  of  the  in- 
habitants, great  and  terrible  as  it  was,  seemed  nothing 
compared  with  the  loss  which  the  city  and  the  Chris- 
tian world  had  sustained  in  the  capture  of  the  True 
Cross.  All  the  western  world  mourned  the  judgment 
of  God,  and  for  fourteen  years  ceased  not  to  pray  for 
the  restoration  of  the  object  of  their  affection. 

While  the  cross  remained  in  the  hands  of  the 
Eastern  pagans,  a  new  power  began  to  arise,  which 
was  to  control  the  destinies  of  the  eastern  world. 
The  camel-driver  of  Mecca  had  become  a  prophet, 
and  the  children  of  Ishmael  and  Esau  had  begun  to 
overrun  the  inheritance  of  Isaac  and  Jacob. 


HOL  Y  CROSS  DA  Y.  83 

After  ten  years  of  battle,  Heraclius,  the  Roman 
Emperor,  on  the  plains  of  Nineveh,  destroyed  the 
Persian  forces  and  recaptured  the  cross.  The  Em- 
peror returned  from  the  East,  and  as  he  approached 
Jerusalem,  mindful  of  his  own  lowliness,  compared 
with  Him  whose  cross  he  was  now  carrying,  dis- 
mounted, and  bared  his  head  and  feet.  Then,  taking 
the  wood  on  his  own  shoulders,  as  his  Lord  and  mas- 
ter had  taken  it  six  hundred  years  before,  he  carried 
it  toward  Calvary.  The  gates  of  the  city  flew  open 
on  his  approach,  and  the  monarch  carried  his  load  to 
Calvary  and  deposited  it  in  its  ancient  place.  The 
day  of  the  return  of  the  cross  was  the  feast  day  of 
the  Exaltation  of  the  Cross,  and,  commemorating  both 
occurrences,  is  marked  in  the  calendar  of  the  Church, 
and  remains  to  this  day  in  the  Roman  and  English 
Church  calendars  as  Holy  Cross  Day.  It  was  the 
14th  of  September,  A.D.  629. 

But  the  repose  of  Jerusalem  was  forever  ended. 
W\^  Arabian  power  was  rapidly  increasing,  and  in 
the  year  637,  Jerusalem  yielded  to  their  armies,  and 
Omar  entered  the  city.  With  that  toleration  which 
has  always  marked  the  Moslem  rule  in  Jerusalem,  a 
special  edict  permitted  the  cross  to  remain  in  the 
possession  and  custody  of  the  Christians  in  Jerusa- 


84  PILGRIMS'    TOMBS. 

lem,  and  pilgrims  continued  as  before  to  throng  all 
the  avenues  of  approach  to  the  city.  But  worship 
was  carried  on  in  a  more  quiet  and  unostentatious 
manner.  Processions  were  interdicted,  crosses  were 
forbidden  to  be  worn  pubHcly  by  priests  or  laity,  and 
bells  were  only  permitted  to  be  tolled.  For  four 
hundred  years  the  caliphs  governed  Jerusalem,  and 
the  Holy  Places  remained  in  their  hands. 

The  history  of  the  cross  and  sepulchre  under  Mos- 
lem rule  is  the  story  of  generation  after  generation 
of  pilgrims  who  came  to  the  Holy  City,  prayed  at  the 
tomb  and  the  foot  of  Calvary,  and  sought  graves  in 
the  dust  of  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat  or  on  the  hill- 
side of  Aceldama.  Millions  of  those  who  could  tell 
the  story  of  the  cross  in  those  years,  lie  silent  around 
Jerusalem. 

I  was  walking  one  afternoon  on  the  slope  of  the 
hill  of  Evil  Counsel,  opposite  the  lower  slope  of 
Mount  Moriah  and  Mount  Zion,  seeking  among  the 
countless  tombs  which  perforate  the  rocks  on  that 
hill-side  for  some  inscription  or  legend  that  might 
give  a  hint  as  to  the  occupants  of  these  now  deserted 
sleeping-places,  when  I  found  a  small  entrance  to  a 
tomb  which  has  generally  escajjcd  observation,  and 
has  attracted  but  little  notice.     Descending  into  it, 


PILGRIMS'    TOMBS.  85 

with  some  little  difficulty,  I  found  a  vaulted  chamber 
in  the  rock  of  the  mountain,  from  which  various 
rooms  and  passages  opened  in  three  directions. 

Lighting  the  candle,  which  an  Eastern  explorer  al- 
ways carries  in  his  pocket,  I  penetrated  these  various 
rooms.  In  some  I  found  only  the  ordinary  rock- 
hewn  couches,  which  I  can  best  describe  by  likening 
them  to  the  berths  in  a  steamboat,  in  which  lay,  white 
and  ghastly,  the  skeletons  of  the  dead  occupants,  not 
to  be  awakened  by  my  tread.  Penetrating  still  deeper, 
however,  I  found  rooms  in  which  the  dead  lay  in  vast 
piles,  heaps  on  heaps  of  bones,  with  the  dry  dust  of 
decayed  humanity,  scattered  among  them.  I  can  not 
estimate  the  number  of  the  dead  lying  in  this  cavern. 
There  were  many  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands.  In 
one  chamber  I  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  heap  and 
crawled  over  it  on  my  hands  and  knees,  crushing  deep 
at  every  step  into  the  fragile  mass,  and  here  I  thought 
to  count  the  skulls  that  lay  on  the  top.  I  tossed  them 
one  by  one  into  a  corner,  and  counted  till  I  reached  a 
hundred,  and  there  was  no  visible  diminution  of  the 
number.  Then  I  stopped  and  left  the  dead  in  their 
dust,  and  came  out  to  the  fresh  air  on  the  hill-side, 
where  the  old  wall  of  the  temple  shone  in  the 
red  sunlight,  and  Mount  Zion  gleamed  rugged  and 
stern,  but  beautiful  for  situation,  as  of  old. 


S6  PILGRIMAGE. 

Various  reasons  have  since  that  time  led  me  to 
think  that  the  dead  who  were  in  this  tomb  may  have 
been  the  pilgrims  of  the  cross  in  the  years  to  which 
this  history  has  now  led  us.  They  may  be  of  a  much 
later  period,  and  if  so,  then  the  dust  of  the  pilgrims 
is  elsewhere  mingled  with  the  dust  of  holy  land. 

The  history  of  the  four  hundred  years  after  Omar, 
could  that  dust  speak,  I  should  ask  of  it.  From  what 
homes  they  came  no  man  may  know.  What  heart, 
think  you,  beat  under  those  skeletons  ?  What  sighs 
and  prayers  escaped  those  lips,  none  can  tell.  But  we 
know  who  the  pilgrims  were.  There  were  stout  men 
from  merrie  England  —  merrie  then,  for  those  were 
days  that  begat  Robin  Hood  and  his  men  to  be  born 
a  century  later.  There  were  cheerful  ballad-singers 
from  Provence,  for  Provence  was  then  expecting  Pe- 
trarch, though  he  came  not  for  three  hundred  years. 
But  Provence  had  then  her  Christian  ballads,  and  the 
Rhone  valley  was  melodious  with  their  sound.  There 
were  flaxen-haired  men  from  Norway  and  Sweden, 
brave  hearts  from  the  Rhine  banks,  and  many  young 
maidens  and  wives  that  came  long  journeys  to  the 
foot  of  the  cross  and  found  graves  at  Aceldama.  Im- 
agination fails  to  paint  the  events  of  one  pilgrimage, 
fails  utterly  to  follow  one  single  aching  heart  from 


FRAGMENTS.  87 

its  home  in  far  lands  through  all  the  weary  way  be- 
tween that  home  and  the  gates  of  the  Holy  City, 
much  less  those  thousands  who  died  without  the 
walls,  having  never  seen  the  cross  they  so  longed  to 
behold,  nor  pressed  their  foreheads  to  the  rock  of  the 
sepulchre. 

And  they  all  believed  in  it.  A  long  faith  if  a  false 
one. 

They  all  believed  it.  The  history  of  those  pilgrim- 
ages will  never  be  written ;  but  it  is  beyond  question 
true  that  that  piece  of  wood  in  Jerusalem  now  influ- 
enced the  history  of  every  nation  in  Europe,  and 
guided  the  destiny  of  the  human  race.  At  this  point, 
if  our  history  were  more  than  a  sketch,  we  might  fol- 
low various  small  fragments  of  the  wood  which  were 
taken  from  Jerusalem,  and  thus  show  the  streams  of 
its  influence  flowing  here  and  there  and  permeating 
European  life,  action,  and  history.  It  becomes  a 
subject  of  wonderful  interest.  Let  us  take  a  single 
illustration,  which  shows  how  it  may  have  had  its 
influence,  remote,  but  perceptible,  on  our  own  Ameri- 
can language,  history,  and  civilization — an  influence 
dating  back  to  this  period  before  the  Crusades. 

The  Norman  Conquest  of  England  shaped  the 
whole  future  history  of  the  English  race.     How  that 


88  A  NORMAN  RELIC. 

conquest  was  affected  by  the  religious  sentiment  of 
the  period  is  matter  of  history.  WiUiam  the  Norman 
extracted  an  oath  from  Harold,  the  last  of  the  Saxon 
kings,  which  oath  had  a  paralyzing  effect  on  the  Sax- 
ons, if  it  did  not  affect  the  counsels,  and  finally  un- 
nerve the  arm  of  Harold  himself  at  Hastings.  The 
remarkable  fact  is  recorded  that  when  Harold  took 
this  oath  he  was  shocked  at  the  holy  character  of 
the  relics  exposed  by  William,  on  which  he  had  made 
what  he  previously  regarded  as  a  mere  trifling  prom- 
ise.    What  were  these  relics? 

None  was  so  highly  venerated  in  that  day  as  the 
True  Cross.  This  we  know  by  ample  evidence.  See 
what  may  have  been  the  connection.  Robert  of 
Normandy,  known  as  Robert  H.,  father  of  William 
the  Norman,  made  the  pilgrimage  on  foot  to  Jerusa- 
lem. History  does  not  tell  us  which  of  his  numerous 
crimes  he  sought  to  expiate,  whether  the  wrong  he 
had  done  Arlotta,  the  furrier's  daughter,  of  Falaise, 
in  the  year  1024,  whence  was  born  William  the  Nor- 
man, Bastard  and  Conqueror,  or  the  poisoning  of 
Richard,  his  brother,  in  1028,  whose  throne  he  seized 
and  occupied.  Bat  penitence  came  in  1035,  tardy 
indeed,  but,  like  slow  penitence  in  most  cases,  terri- 
ble even  to  remorse  when  it  did  at  length  seize  him, 


Et  HAKIM 


89 


and  the  stout  knight  fled  apace  to  the  sepulchre. 
On  his  return  he  died  before  reaching  home  ;  but  sent 
to  France  a  piece  of  the  True  Cross,  which  was  de- 
posited in  an  abbey.  It  is  at  least  possible,  and 
when  we  remember  Harold's  great  emotion  at  that 
time,  it  seems  highly  probable  that  the  piece  of  the 
cross  which  Robert  sent  home  was  one  of  the  relics 
on  which  his  son  William  made  Harold  swear  that 
oath  which  unnerved  his  arm  and  ensured  the  con- 
quest of  England  by  the  Normans. 

Similar  influences  can  be  traced  on  other  European 
nations  at  this  same  period.  But  we  pass  on  with  the 
history  of  the  chief  fragment  remaining  in  Jerusalem. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  century.  El  Hakim, 
the  fanatic  caliph  of  Egypt,  invaded  Palestine  and 
destroyed  Jerusalem.  The  Church  of  the  Resurrec- 
tion was  absolutely  razed  to  the  ground,  but  his  at- 
tempt to  burn  the  Holy  Sepulchre  failed,  the  rock 
resisting  the  fire.  The  cross  was  rescued  from  his 
hands  and  concealed  by  Christians  in  Jerusalem,  and 
remained  concealed  from  public  gaze,  but  at  times 
exposed  to  the  eyes  of  the  devout  during  the  turbu- 
lent years  that  were  now  passing  over  the  Holy  City. 
El  Hakim's  conquest  was  in  the  year  1009.  For 
ninety  years  the  sufferings  and  wrongs  of  Christian 


go  THE  FIRST  CRUSADE. 

pilgrims  were  ten-fold  increased,  and  then  came  the 
day  of  vengeance. 


XIII. 

THE    KINGDOM    OF    JERUSALEM. 

The  entire  history  of  the  first,  second,  and  part  of 
the  third  crusade  belongs  to  the  history  of  the  cross. 
All  over  Europe  oaths  were  taken  upon  its  fragments 
to  "  take  the  cross  "  and  redeem  the  Holy  Land.  The 
cross  was  the  sign  worn  to  distinguish  the  Crusader. 
Armies  knelt  when  priests  lifted  the  jeweled  reli- 
quaires  which  held  these  minute,  but  poAverful  relics, 
and  the  faith  of  the  Christian  world  led  to  the  rescue 
of  the  sacred  wood.  It  remained  in  the  hands  of  the 
Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  concealed  from  infidel  gaze,  a 
mystery  whose  power  v/as  more  feared  by  the  Sara- 
cens than  the  armies  of  the  Christians.  This  fear  was 
abundantly  shown  by  the  later  history  of  the  wood 
when  it  fell  into  Moslem  hands. 

During  the  years  which  marked  the  approach  of 
Godfrey  and  his  valiant  crusaders,  it  remained  con- 


THE  FIRST  CRUSADE: 


91 


cealed  until  that  Friday  morning,  13th  July,  1099, 
when  the  white  horseman  appeared  on  the  Mount  of 
Olives,  and  the  Christian  hosts  entered  the  breach, 
and  Jerusalem  was  again  freed  from  the  infidel. 

Of  the  fury  of  that  combat,  when  Jerusalem  fell 
into  the  crusaders'  hands,  no  words  can  give  any 
adequate  idea.  The  Christians  spared  none  of  the 
infidels.  Shrieks,  cries,  the  clash  of  armor,  the 
shouts  of  knights  and  their  retainers,  the  wails 
of  women — then  as  now  in  the  East,  thrilling,  pierc- 
ing wails — rent  the  sky  with  a  hideous  confusion  of 
sounds  which  made  the  very  atmosphere  seem  filled 
with  ringing  voices  of  despair  or  of  fury.  But  sud- 
denly from  the  very  heart  of  the  city  a  sound  was 
heard  that  overpowered  all  other  sounds.  It  was  as 
the  voice  of  an  archangel,  so  sudden  was  the  stillness 
that  took  possession  of  the  city.  Down  the  hillside 
of  .Zion,  up  the  ascent  of  Moriah,  along  the  crescent 
slope  of  Bezetha  and  Akra,  swept  a  train  of  stoled 
priests,  headed  by  Daimbert,  the  legate  of  the  Pope, 
bearing  the  wood  of  the  true  cross  for  which  they 
had  fought,  and  which,  safe  and  intact,  they  now  be- 
held. Swords  fell  from  the  grasps  of  slayers.  The 
carnage  ceased.  No  sound  was  heard  in  the  streets 
unless  it  were  souls  of  Saracens  and  Christians  escap- 


^2  JERUSALEM   LIBERATED. 

ing  through  bubbling  wounds.  Stillness  profound 
as  that  of  a  deserted  city  reigned,  as  for  a  little  while 
the  conquerors  knelt,  every  man  where  he  stood,  in 
blood  and  mire,  gazing  with  unutterable  joy  on  the 
cross,  which  had  been  found  in  its  secret  place,  and 
was  now  triumphantly  shown  to  the  victors. 

Then,  loud  and  clear  and  joyful,  the  full  chant  of 
the  Benedicite  sounded  out,  as  the  procession  swept 
along,  lifting  the  sacred  wood  high  up  over  the  car- 
nage it  had  caused.  The  Saracens  gasped  as  they 
saw  it,  and  choked  with  impotent  curses.  The  dying 
crusaders  beheld  it  through  the  bloody  films  that 
gathered  in  their  eyes,  and  smiled  as  they  departed, 
murmuring  the  Nunc  Dimittis.  Bareheaded,  unarm- 
ed, and  chanting  with  the  stoutest  monk  of  them  all, 
close  behind  the  cross,  followed  Godfrey,  first  king 
that  was  to  be,  and  Tancred,  Raymond,  and  Eustace, 
Hugh  de  St.  Paul,  and  Gaston  de  Beam,  and  a  host 
of  other  worthies,  whose  names  live  in  history  and 
song,  proud  followers  of  the  cross  whose  freedom 
they  had  this  day  won.  Never  did  setting  sun  go 
down  on  a  sadder  city  or  grander  procession  than 
when  it  went  down  that  night  on  Jerusalem  liber- 
ated. 

Restored  to  its  place  on  the  rock  of  Calvary,  the 


A  NO/^  IVA  V  RELIC. 


93 


cross  was  again  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth,  during 
the  brief  sad  history  of  the  Kingdom  of  Jerusalem. 
One  by  one  the  kings  of  the  Holy  City  died  and 
were  buried  at  its  base.  Godfrey  first  on  the  right, 
Baldwin  on  the  left,  lay  down  like  brave  knights  by 
the  sacred  wood  for  which  they  had  fought,  and 
slept,  as  brave  knights  should,  at  the  foot  of  the  cross 
they  had  rescued. 

Take  here  again  one  instance  of  its  importance  in 
European  history.  Perhaps  the  highest  price  ever 
paid  for  a  fragment  of  it  was  paid  to  Baldwin  I.,  by 
Sigurd,  prince  of  Norway,  known  to  fame  as  Sigurd 
the  Crusader.  He  is  one  of  those  heroes  of  history 
that  romance  can  not  make  more  interesting  than  he 
appears  in  sober  truth.  Starting  from  Norway  on  an 
excursion  after  fame,  the  fair-haired  boy  of  eighteen, 
at  the  head  of  ten  thousand  men,  sailed  into  the 
Straits  of  Gibraltar.  He  passed  a  year  of  delight  to 
himself  and  his  followers  in  fighting  the  Saracens 
on  the  coasts  of  Spain  and  Morocco,  doing  deeds  of 
valor  that  are  recorded  both  in  the  Norwegian  songs 
and  the  Latin  Chronicles. 

At  length  he  arrived  at  the  Holy  Land,  and  went 
up  to  Jerusalem  to  purchase  a  piece  of  the  true  cross, 
and  to  accomplish  his  pilgrimage.     Baldwin  was  in 


94 


A  NOR  WA  V  RELIC. 


want  of  naval  assistance,  and  the  young  warrior  was 
ready  for  battle.  That,  indeed,  was  his  business  and 
his  pleasure.  He  willingly  consented  to  join  in  an 
attack  on  the  great  city  of  Saida,  or  Sidon,  then  the 
strongest  port  on  the  Eastern  Mediterranean,  and 
having  captured  it,  relinquished  all  his  rights  of  con- 
quest to  Baldwin,  accepting  a  fragment  of  the  wood 
of  the  cross  as  his  sole  reward.  The  Norwegian 
chronicle  says  that  King  Baldwin  and  the  Patriarch 
caused  this  splinter  of  the  wood  to  be  taken  off,  and 
on  it  ''  they  both  made  oath  that  this  wood  was  of 
the  holy  cross  upon  which  God  Himself  had  been 
tortured.  Then  this  holy  relic  was  given  to  King 
Sigurd,  with  the  condition  that  he  and  twelve  other 
men  with  him  should  swear  to  promote  Christianity 
with  all  his  power,  and  erect  an  archbishop's  seat  in 
Norway  if  he  could,  and  also  that  the  cross  should 
be  kept  where  the  holy  king  Olaf  reposed,  and  that 
he  should  introduce  tithes  and  pay  them  himself." 

Thus,  by  the  wood  of  the  cross,  Christianity  was 
founded  firmly  in  Northern  Europe.  Many  volumes 
would  be  necessary  to  trace  the  influences  thence 
proceeding  in  all  the  later  history  of  Norway,  Sweden, 
Denmark,  and  Germany.  Perhaps  it  was  from  this 
purchase  by  Sigurd  that  came  a  splinter  of  the  wood 


THE  DARLING  QUEEN.  05 

which  lay  on  the  breast  of  Dagmar,  the  "  darling 
queen"  of  Denmark,  when,  in  the  year  12 12,  she, 
young  and  beautiful,  was  carried  to  her  grave.  '  The 
Danish  legends  say,  that  though  she  lay  dead  as 
they  bore  her  toward  the  church,  yet  she  awoke  at 
the  sound  of  the  voice  of  her  husband,  King  Valde- 
mar,  who  came  riding  down  the  street  and  met  the 
procession.  And  as  in  her  life  before,  so  now  she 
begged  of  him  mercy  for  the  poor,  the  outlawed,  the 
prisoners,  and  then  slept  again,  and  was  buried  with 
the  jewel  on  her  breast.  Long  after,  her  tomb  was 
opened  and  the  reliquaire  taken  out,  and  it  is  now 
in  the  museum  in  Copenhagen,  prized  by  all  Denmark 
as  a  precious  relic,  but  more  for  the  memory  of  the 
well-beloved  Dagmar  than  for  the  splinter  of  wood 
supposed  to  be  within  it.  The  jewel  itself,  enameled 
in  Byzantine  style,  with  pictures  of  Christ  and  the 
Virgin  Mother,  St.  John,  Basilius,  and  Chrysostom,  is 
in  the  form  of  a  cross,  and  is,  perhaps,  the  oldest 
known  enameled  cross.  All  Denmark  knows  it ;  and 
the  King  presented  to  the  Princess  Alexandra  a  fac- 
simile of  it  on  the  occasion  of  her  marriage  with  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  in  token  of  the  trust  of  Denmark, 
remembering  Dagmar,  that  she,  too,  would  win  such 
love  and  honor  when  Queen  of  England. 


0  THE  HOLY  SEPULCHRE. 

A  hundred  and  eighty-seven  years  the  kingdom  of 
Jerusalem  had  existence,  and  then  it  became  but  a 
name,  a  soundinej-  title  annexed  to  western  thrones. 
I'Vom  year  to  year  the  history  of  the  cross  was  the 
same.  Broken  hearts  found  consolation  before  the 
wood.  Weary  souls  found  refreshment  before  it. 
Tired  men  found  rest  at  its  foot. 

If  there  is  hallowed  ground  on  the  earth,  it  is  the 
ground  which  human  knees  have  pressed  in  prayer, 
which  humble  and  sincere  grief  has  sanctified  with 
tears.  Within  the  circuit  of  the  walls  of  the  Church 
of  the  Resurrection  at  Jerusalem  there  may  be  in- 
closed, perhaps,  an  acre  of  ground.  The  earth  is  the 
great  historian.  Its  hills  and  rocks,  its  plains  and 
seas  are  the  memorials  of  great  events.  But  could 
the  history  of  that  one  acre  of  ground  be  written,  its 
stories  would  be  more  strange  and  sad  than  those  of 
any  thousand  other  acres  on  the  surface  of  the  globe 
Within  the  Holy  Sepulchre  itself  the  rocky  floor  is 
but  six  feet  by  two,  a  narrow  strip,  on  which  the  vis- 
itors who  stoop  down  to  look  in  will  sometimes  see 
three  or  possibly  four  pilgrims  kneeling  with  fore- 
heads pressed  on  the  low  marble  plate  that  covers  the 
shelf  whereon  the  body  lay.  That  little  piece  of 
floor,  those  twelve  square  feet  of  rock,  h:.ve  a  history 


CI? OSS  AND    TOMB. 


97 


which  will  be  told  ages  hence  when  other  stories  of 
this  world's  surface  are  forgotten  with  the  ashes  it 
will  have  gone  to. 

There  millions  of  pilgrims  have  knelt,  believing 
that  there  Mary  knelt  when  they  laid  Him  in  the 
sepulchre,  and  threw  her  arms  around  his  silent  form 
in  the  last  embrace;  and  that  there  his  feet  first 
touched  the  rock  of  the  world  He  had  redeemed 
when  He  awoke  from  the  slumber  of  atonement. 
Whether  their  belief  was  true  or  not,  there  year  by 
year,  from  the  days  of  Constantine  until  this,  the 
lowly  and  the  great,  slaves  and  emperors,  men  of  all 
nations  and  all  classes,  brought  their  loads  of  sin  and 
laid  them  down  on  that  small  floor.  Near  it,  a  few 
paces  to  the  east,  was  the  Rock  of  Calvary,  where 
the  wood  of  the  cross  was  enshrined,  and  the  devout 
knelt  before  it.  He  who  prayed  in  Jerusalem  knelt 
first  at  the  cross  and  then  at  the  tomb.  Here  the 
betrayer  and  the  betrayed  alike  found  consolation. 
Here  the  oppressor  and  the  oppressed  met  on  equal 
ground  and  with  equal  humility.  Nor  was  it  uncom- 
mon, in  those  days  of  which  we  now  speak,  for  the 
knightly  wrong-doer,  coming  conscience-driven  to  the 
cross,  and  the  poor  and  lowly  wronged,  coming  as 
well  in  meek  contrition  and  shame,  to  meet  face  to 

s 


q8  medieval  hymns. 

face  on  their  knees,  with  the  cross  and  its  lessons  of 
penitence  and  sacrifice  before  them. 

From  time  to  time  in  this,  as  in  all  periods  of  its 
history,  the  devotion  of  men  to  the  wood  inspired 
eloquence  in  sermon  and  in  song,  which  became  part 
of  the  literary  treasures  of  the  Church,  and  had  and 
still  have  power.  If  the  wood  of  the  cross  had  never 
produced  any  other  effect  in  the  world  than  this,  this 
alone  would  have  made  the  history  important  and 
precious.  There  is  something  very  holy  in  an  old 
song  of  praise,  which  has  expressed  the  devout  emo- 
tions of  men,  and  women,  and  children  from  age  to 
age.  We  all  cherish  such  songs.  The  Pange  Lingua 
and  the  Vexilla  Regis  were  the  predecessors  not  only 
of  the  familiar  translations  known  to  us,  but  of  such 
noble  hymns  as  "  When  I  survey  the  wondrous 
Cross,"  and  many  others  of  like  power. 

The  poetic  literature  of  the  cross  is  abundant,  and 
a  small  part  of  it  would  fill  many  pages  of  this  vol- 
ume. Adam  of  St.  Victor,  in  the  twelfth  century, 
looking  toward  Jerusalem  and  the  much-loved  wood, 
now  surrounded  by  the  defenders  of  the  kingdom  and 
visited  by  many  pilgrims,  wrote  the  sequence,  which 
Dr.  Neale  regards  as  his  masterpiece,  and  which  he 
translates  in  his  Mediaeval  Hymns.  We  reproduce 
this  translation  here : 


LAUDES    CRUCIS   x\TTOLLAMUS. 

Be  the  Cross  our  theme  and  story, 

We  who  in  the  Cross's  glory- 
Shall  exult  for  evermore. 

By  the  Cross  the  warrior  rises, 

By  the  Cross  the  foe  despises. 

Till  he  gains  the  heavenly  shore. 

Heavenward  raise  songs  and  praise : 
Saved  from  loss  by  the  Cross, 

Give  the  Cross  his  honor  due. 
Life  and  voice  keep  well  in  chorus ; 
Then  the  melody  sonorous 

Shall  make  concord  good  and  true. 

Love  be  warm,  and  praise  be  fervent, 
Thou  that  art  the  Cross's  servant. 

And  in  that  hast  rest  from  strife : 
Every  kindred,  every  nation. 
Hail  the  Tree  that  brings  salvation, 

Tree  of  Beauty,  Tree  of  Life ! 

O  how  glorious,  how  transcendent 
Was  this  Altar !  how  resplendent 

In  the  life-blood  of  the  Lamb  ! 
Of  the  Lamb  Immaculate 
That  redeemed  our  ancient  state 

From  its  sin  and  from  its  shame. 

(99) 


100 


LAUDES  CRUCIS. 

This  the  Ladder  Jacob  saw 

Whereby  all  things  Christ  shall  draw 

To  Himself,  both  friends  and  foes : 
Who  its  nature  hath  expended 
In  its  limits  comprehended 

All  the  world's  four  quarters  knows. 

No  new  Sacraments  we  mention  ; 
We  devise  no  fresh  invention  : 

This  religion  was  of  old  ; 
Wood  made  sweet  the  bitter  current : 
Wood  called  forth  the  rushing  torrent 

From  the  smitten  rock  that  rolled. 

No  salvation  for  the  mansion 
Where  the  Cross  in  meet  expansion 

On  the  door-post  stood  not  graved  ; 
Where  it  stood,  the  midnight  blast 
Of  the  avenging  Angel  passed, 

And  the  first-born  child  was  saved. 

Wood  the  widow's  hands  collected. 
When  salvation  unexpected 

Came,  the  Prophet's  mystic  boon : 
Where  the  wood  of  faith  is  wanted. 
There  the  Spirit's  oil  is  scanted, 

And  the  meal  is  wasted  soon. 

Rome  beheld  each  armed  vessel 
And  Maxentius  vainly  wrestle 


LAUDES  CRUCIS,  lOI 

In  the  deep  against  its  might : 
This  procured  the  bright  ovation 
O'er  the  Persian  and  the  Thracian 

When  Heradius  won  the  fight. 

Types  of  old  in  Scripture  hidden 
Setting  forth  the  Cross,  are  bidden 

In  these  days  to  fuller  light ; 
Kings  are  flying,  foes  are  dying, 
On  the  Cross  of  Christ  relying 

One  a  thousand  puts  to  flight. 

This  its  votaries  still  assureth. 
Victory  evermore  secureth. 
Weakness  and  diseases  cureth, 

Triumphs  o'er  the  powers  of  hell ; 
Satan's  captives  liberateth. 
Life  in  sinners  renovateth. 
All  in  glory  reinstateth 

Who  by  ancient  Adam  fell. 

Tree,  triumphal  might  possessing, 
Earth's  salvation,  crown,  and  blessing. 
Every  other  praetergressing 

Both  in  bloom  and  bud  and  flower ; 
Medicine  of  the  Christian  spirit. 
Save  the  just,  give  sinners  merit, 
Who  dost  might  for  deeds  inherit 
Overpassing  human  power. 


102  THE  CROSS  IS  LOST, 

The  kingdom  of  Jerusalem  fell.  Once  we  read 
that  the  cross  was  carried  to  the  gate  of  the  city  with 
Baldwin  and  his  army  when  they  went  down  to  meet 
the  Saracens  at  Askelon,  and  one  chronicler  relates 
that  the  wood  was  actually  carried  to  that  battle- 
field, where  the  crusaders  triumphed.  The  better 
opinion  would  seem  to  be  that  it  never  left  the  Holy 
City  until  that  day  when,  the  kingdom  being  in  dan- 
ger, Guy  of  Lusignan,  last  king  of  Jerusalem,  brought 
it  to  the  plain  of  Galilee  to  rally  the  drooping  spirits 
of  his  soldiery,  and  lost  it  with  his  kingdom. 


XIV. 

THE     CROSS     IS     LOST. 

No  scene  in  history  is  more  profoundly  solemn 
and  sad  than  is  that  presented  by  the  council  of 
knights  which  Guy,  last  King  of  Jerusalem,  called  to- 
gether in  the  camp  at  Sephouri,  on  July  i,  1187, 
when  the  Christian  army  were  gathered  for  the  last 
struggle  with  Saladin. 

The  days  of  Godfrey,  Tancred,  and  the  soldiers  of 
old  time  were  gone  by.  Godfrey  had  finished  work, 
and  lain  down,  on  the  right-hand  side,  close  as  grave 


DISHONOR.  103 

could  well  be  cut  in  the  stone,  at  the  foot  of  the  rock 
of  Calvary.  A  little  later  Baldwin,  his  successor,  took 
his  sleep  near  by,  on  the  left-hand  side,  and  the  two 
dead  knights  reposed  in  peace  till  an  enemy  tore 
them  out  of  their  graves,  and  scattered  their  dust  to 
become  part  and  parcel  of  holy  land.  The  defense 
of  cross  and  sepulchre  had  ceased  to  be,  either  to 
king  or  knight,  of  any  importance  compared  with 
the  defense  of  possessions  and  power.  Dissensions, 
jealousies,  enmities,  all  the  ordinary  consequences  of 
greed,  ambition,  avarice,  and  pride,  had  weakened  the 
kingdom.  The  old  faith  was  dead.  The  cross  was 
enshrined  in  a  golden  case,  blazing  with  jewels,  but 
the  defenders  thought  more  of  the  gold  and  the 
jewels  than  of  the  wood  within,  or  the  Lord  of  whose 
death  it  was  the  memorial.  Men  were  seeking  per- 
sonal advantage,  utterly  oblivious  of  honor,  honesty, 
or  duty;  women,  even  to  the  queen  herself,  had 
abandoned  ordinary  respect  for  virtue,  and  the  court 
at  Jerusalem  was  vile  in  the  eyes  of  men  and  of  God. 
In  the  midst  of  this  universal  degradation,  a  few 
knights  remained,  whose  lives  shine  out  conspicuous 
amid  the  gloomy  surroundings.  These  were  men  of 
the  grand  old  mould,  in  w^hich  Godfrey  and  Tancred 
and  their  brothers  in  arms  were  cast. 


104 


RA  VMOND  OF  TRIPOLI. 


Had  there  been,  on  the  part  of  the  Christian 
knights,  any  respect  for  oaths  or  knightly  honor,  the 
kingdom  might  have  been  prosperous,  and  the  land 
at  peace.  But  the  sum  of  their  iniquities  was  com- 
plete, and  the  Saracen  Sultan,  wearied  with  their  re- 
peated violations  of  faith,  had  assembled  his  forces  to 
the  terror  of  all  Palestine. 

Raymond,  Count  of  Tripoli,  nearer,  perhaps,  than 
any  other  knight,  to  the  old  type,  had  been  on  the 
worst  possible  terms  with  Guy.  His  castle  of  Tiberias, 
on  the  shore  of  the  sea  of  Galilee,  only  a  few  miles 
distant  from  Sephouri,  was  now  beleaguered  by  the 
Saracens  in  full  force.  His  wife  was  in  the  castle, 
surrounded  by  the  enemy,  who  had  carried  the  city, 
but  were  held  at  bay  by  the  defenders  of  the  citadel. 
Raymond  had  been  at  actual  war  with  Guy,  himself 
indeed  a  claimant  of  the  throne  to  which  Guy  had 
come  in  away  not  very  honorable ;  but  on  this  oc- 
casion of  such  terrible  importance  to  the  Christian 
cause,  he  had  thrown  aside  all  personal  animosity,  left 
his  wife  and  castle  surrounded  by  the  enemy,  and 
joined  the  army  of  the  Cross  at  Sephouri.  But  the 
Grand  Master  of  the  Templars,  and  the  larger  portion 
of  the  knights,  who  formed  the  miserable  support  of 
Guy's  tottering  throne,  less  noble  than  Raymond,  re- 


THE  SCENERY. 


[05 


tained  their  bitter  feeling  toward  him,  and  by  person- 
al influence  with  the  weak  king,  overcame  the  force 
of  his  wise  counsels.  The  end  was  at  hand,  and  some 
foresaw  it  with  Raymond,  yet  determined  to  fight 
that  last  battle  as  brave  men,  true  to  God  and  king- 
dom. The  question  submitted  to  the  council  was 
whether  the  Christians  should  march  out  from  the 
hill  country,  across  the  hot  plain,  destitute  of  water, 
attack  the  Saracens,  and  relieve  Tiberias,  or  whether 
prudence  required  them  to  remain  in  their  position, 
permit  the  fall  of  Tiberias,  and  await  a  more  favor- 
able opportunity  for  the  decisive  battle.  Raymond, 
whose  personal  interests  were  in  Tiberias,  nobly  laid 
them  down,  saying,  in  the  old  knightly  style,  that  he 
could  easily  win  back  his  castle,  and  rescue  his  wife 
from  captivity,  but  that  the  kingdom  once  lost,  all 
was  lost. 

The  scene  of  the  events  now  about  to  occur  was 
full  of  interest,  and  full  of  warning.  But  a  little  way 
from  them,  to  the  southward,  was  the  plain  of  Esdra- 
elon,  the  battle-ground  on  which,  in  ancient  wars,  the 
judgments  of  God  had  been  executed.  Across  the 
valley  Guy  might  see  the  village  of  Endor,  where 
Saul,  in  just  such  distress  as  his  own,  had  sought 
counsel  of  the  dead  prophet,  and  obtained  no  com- 
5* 


'06  THE   CROSS. 

fort.     Beyond  were  the  mountains  of  Gilboa,  gloomy 
with  terrible  warning  to  the  recreant  King  of  Jerusa- 
lem.    Lebanon   towered  above  them  to  the  north- 
ward, and  away  in  the  north-east  the  snowy  sum 
mit  of  Hermon  pierced  the  sky. 

To  the  eastward  stretched  the  broad  plain  which 
lies  between  the  last  slopes  of  the  Lebanon  hills  and 
the  blue  sea  of  Galilee,  and  on  this  plain,  the  low  hill 
of  Hattin  was  then,  as  now,  supposed  to  be  the 
Mount  of  the  Beatitudes.  Thence  there  was  no  com- 
fort to  be  derived,  but  rather  terror,  for  there  was  no 
one  of  the  blessings  there  pronounced  to  which  the 
Christian  knights  could  lay  claim,  no  one  which  they 
had  not  specifically  forfeited  by  innumerable  sins. 

In  the  center  of  the  camp  was  the  wood  of  the 
cross.  Thinking  to  revive  the  fainting  courage  of  his 
soldiers,  Guy  had  persuaded  the  Patriarch  to  send  it 
from  Jerusalem  to  Galilee,  in  charge  of  the  Bishop  of 
Ptolemais  (Acre),  and  the  Bishop  of  St.  George 
(Lydda).  The  council  was  fierce  and  angry.  The 
Grand  Master  boldly  charged  Raymond  with  treason 
and  denounced  his  advice  as  intended  for  ill. 

In  the  night,  the  Grand  Master  persuaded  Guy  to 
reject  the  wise  counsel  of  his  ablest  advisers,  and  de- 
cide upon  leading  out  his  army  to  meet  Saladin. 


THE    TWO  LEADERS.  JO/ 

The  scene,  in  a  moral  view,  was  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  in  history. 

The  two  armies,  encamped  within  a  few  miles  of 
each  other,  and  about  to  engage  in  battle,  were  the 
representatives  of  two  faiths.  The  one,  the  army  of 
Islam,  imbued  with  vigorous,  living,  enthusiastic  faith 
in  the  camel-driver  of  Mecca;  the  other,  the  army  of 
the  Cross,  having  scarce  enough  of  the  ancient  faith 
to  entitle  them  to  the  Christian  name  ;  looking  to  the 
wood  with  a  superstitious  hope  that  it  might  have 
some  virtue,  but  utterly  oblivious  now  of  Him  whose 
death  for  their  salvation  it  typified. 

The  leaders  of  the  two  armies  presented  a  terrible 
contrast  in  character.  The  religion  of  the  cross  was 
not  responsible  for  the  shame  of  the  one,  who  was  a 
worthless  king  and  a  perjured  knight,  nor  was  Islam 
to  be  credited  with  the  nobleness  of  the  other.  Guy 
was  an  exceptional  disgrace  to  Christianity.  Saladin 
was  an  exceptional  glory  to  Mohammedanism. 

The  greatest  soldier  and  the  purest  monarch  of  his 
age,  a  man  the  like  of  whom  has  been  rarely  known 
in  this  world,  was  Yusef  Salah-ed-Din,  or  as  his  name 
is"  now  commonly  written,  Saladin.  A  devout  Mo- 
hammedan, constant  in  prayer,  brilliant  in  feats  of 
arms,  the  soul  of  honor,  accustomed  to  victory  but 


I08  YUSEF  SALAD  IN. 

always  self-restrained,  stern  and  tremendous  in  battle, 
but  gentle  and  pitiful  as  a  woman  to  the  conquered, 
unrelenting  in  justice  but  merciful  beyond  prudence, 
ever  ready  to  forgive  injuries  even  the  most  foul, 
true  as  truth,  I  know  no  more  resplendent  character 
among  the  heroes  of  history. 

Scenes  in  his  life  are  full  of  poetic  beauty.  His 
ever  open  hand  and  purse,  filled  again  and  again  with 
the  spoils  of  conquest,  were  emptied  in  charity.  A 
Christian  mother  whose  babe  had  been  seized  by  a 
Saracen  and  carried  into  the  hostile  camp,  rushed  in 
frenzy  across  the  lines  and  made  the  air  ring  with  her 
wails.  Saladin  heard  her,  called  her  to  him,  found 
the  child,  paid  the  ransom  to  his  soldier,  and  sent  the 
mother  back  rejoicing  and  safe.  When  Jerusalem 
fell  into  his  hands  (November,  1187),  the  terms  of  the 
capitulation  were  fixed  that  the  Christians  should  pay 
ten  dinars  ransom  for  every  man,  five  for  every  wom- 
an, and  two  for  every  child,  and  those  who  could 
not  pay  should  be  prisoners  and  slaves  to  the  con- 
querors. 

The  clemency  of  Saladin  was  unparalleled.  He  dis- 
charged free  large  numbers  unsolicited.  Then  two 
of  his  generals  obtained  the  liberty  of  1,500  Armeni- 
ans, alleging  that   they  were  their  countrymen,  and 


YUSEF  SALADm.  lOQ 

only  pilgrims.  Thousands  of  poor  Christians  re- 
mained unransomed,  of  whom  many  were  women  and 
children.  Seif-ed-Din,  brother  of  the  Sultan,  said  to 
him, ''  I  have  fought  well ;  give  me  a  thousand  slaves." 
•' What  will  you  do  with  them?"  said  the  Sultan. 
"  What  I  see  fit."  The  Sultan  approved  his  brother's 
intent,  gave  him  a  thousand,  and  they  were  at  once 
set  free.  Then  the  patriarch  went  to  him,  and  the 
Sultan  gave  him  seven  hundred ;  and  to  another  who 
begged  them,  five  hundred  more,  all  of  whom  went 
free.  "  Now  I  will  give  my  own  gift  of  charity,"  said 
Saladin ;  and  opening  the  gates,  he  directed  that  all 
the  poor,  known  absolutely  to  be  too  poor  to  pay  the 
ransom,  should  have  free  egress  till  sunset,  and 
thousands  thus  went  out  free. 

Then  he  opened  his  purse  and  poured  out  actual 
wealth  on  the  widows  and  orphans  of  the  Christian 
knights  that  he  had  slain  in  battle.  And  when  the 
great  companies  of  the  Christians  went  to  the  part 
of  the  land  still  in  Christian  possession,  he  sent  troops 
with  them,  charged  to  take  such  care  of  the  sick  and 
feeble,  that  these  Saracens,  imbued  with  the  spirit  of 
their  leader,  put  the  women  on  their  horses,  and 
walked,  carrying  the  children  in  their  arms.  It  was 
not  strange  that  when  he  died  the  mourning  of  the 


£IO  YUSEF  SALADIN. 

Moslems  in  Damascus  was  greater  than  before  or 
since  for  any  other  Sultan  or  Khalif.  The  account  of 
his  death,  given  by  Ben-Sjeddadi,  his  biographer,  who 
was  with  him  to  the  end,  is  exceedingly  simple  and 
touching.  Lying  in  the  delirium  of  fever,  as  the  last 
night  wore  on,  his  faithful  physician,  who,  says  the 
historian,  remained  by  his  side  to  direct,  if  it  might 
be,  his  wandering  mind  toward  God,  read  aloud  now 
and  then  passages  from  the  Koran.  Toward  morning, 
as  Abou-Sjafarus  read  the  words,  "  He  is  God,  and 
beside  Him  there  is  none  other,"  the  face  of  the  dying 
monarch  grew  resplendent,  he  murmured,  "  It  is 
most  true,"  and  so  died.  Abulfeda  says,  "  He  left  in 
his  treasury  nothing  save  forty-seven  pieces  of  silver 
money  and  one  piece  of  Tyrian  gold,  out  of  all  the 
spoils  of  Egypt,  Syria,  the  Eastern  regions,  and 
Arabia  Felix ;  so  great  had  been  his  liberality.  He 
transmitted  neither  house  nor  land  to  any  heir." 
Such  was  the  leader  of  the  Saracens,  who,  as  his 
name,  Salah-ed-Din,  implies,  was  the  hope  of  the  re- 
ligion, the  "  Defender  of  the  Faith." 

This  brief  digression  to  outline  the  character  of  the 
great  Sultan  who  wrested  the  cross  and  sepulchre  from 
the  Christians,  is  not  wholly  out  of  place  in  the  history 
of  that  wood.     We  have  already  said  that  no  faith  is 


FAITH  AGAINST  FAITH.       '  m 

contemptible ;  that  faith  in  falsehood  is  a  power. 
The  triumphs  of  the  cross  had  been  triumphs  of  faith. 
By  faith  Godfrey  had  hewn  his  path  to  the  door  of 
the  Holy  Sepulchre,  and  redeemed  the  memorials  of 
the  passion  of  his  Lord.  Now  holy  faith  was  dead  in 
the  hearts  of  the  followers  of  Christ,  and  their  un- 
certain counsels  and  feeble  arms  were  opposed  to  the 
Soldan  whose  life  was  a  long  illustration  of  his  faith 
in  One  God  and  Mohammed  as  his  apostle,  and  to 
the  united  faith  of  his  followers  in  the  same  creed. 
The  Deus  vult  of  the  crusaders  was  no  longer  uttered 
with  one  voice  from  hearts  beating  as  one.  The 
Allah  Khbur  of  the  Saracens  was  the  utterance  of 
faith  that  was  firm  unto  death.  And  firm  faith  in  the 
camel-driver  of  Mecca  triumphed  over  feeble  faith  in 
the  cross  and  in  Him  who  had  died  upon  it.  There 
is  therefore  a  great  interest  in  this  connection  in  the 
character  of  the  descendant  of  Abraham,  whom  God 
selected  as  his  instrument  to  bring  about  the  final 
accomplishment  of  the  tardy  blessing  of  Isaac 
bestowed  on  Esau. 

Yielding  to  the  advice  of  the  Grand  Master  of  the 
Templars,  Guy  moved  his  army  from  the  hill  country 
out  on  the  plain  of  Hattin,  and  Saladin  advanced 
from  the  sea-shore  to  meet  him. 


112  BA  TTLE  OF  HA  T  TIN. 

The  warnings  of  Raymond  were  found  to  have  been 
wise.  The  heat  was  terrible.  There  was  no  water. 
The  Saracens  held  all  the  positions.  The  battle  com- 
menced on  the  4th  day  of  July,  and  lasted,  with  vary- 
ing fortune,  through  the  day.  Saladin,  with  eighty 
thousand  men,  made  desperate  attacks  on  the  Chris- 
tian hosts.  One  charge  of  twenty  thousand  horsemen, 
led  by  the  Sultan  in  person,  is  one  of  the  most  terrible 
in  military  history. 

Saladin  himself  observed  the  vast  power  of  the 
Cross,  around  which  he  saw  the  Christians  gathered 
in  their  strongest  array,  and  remarked,  as  an  Arabian 
historian  records,  that  they  rallied  around  it  with  the 
utmost  bravery,  "  as  if  they  believed  it  their  greatest 
blessing,  strongest  bond  of  union,  and  surest  defense." 
Night  came  down  on  the  battle-field,  while  its  fate 
was  undecided.  The  morning  of  July  5th  broke 
terribly.  .  It  was  very  hot,  and  the  Saracens  set  fire 
to  the  grass  and  brush,  from  which  the  strong  kham- 
seen  wind  blew  flames  and  smoke  into  the  Christian 
hosts,  blinding  and  suffocating  them.  The  plain  of 
Hattin  became  a  very  hell,  where,  as  an  old  chroniclei 
says,  "  the  sons  of  Heaven  and  the  children  of  fire 
fought  their  great  battle."  And  now,  in  the  hour  of 
their  agony,  somewhat  of  the  old  valor  seemed  to  re- 


BATTLE  OF  HA  TThV. 


113 


turn  to  them,  and  templars  vied  with  knights  of  St. 
John  in  vahant  deeds  around  the  cross.  Saladin 
directed  his  heaviest  forces  toward  the  capture  of  the 
wood,  for  he  believed  that  so  long  as  it  remained  in 
Christian  hands,  so  long  their  arms  would  continue 
strong,  their  courage  and  determination  invincible. 
Slowly,  as  the  day  wore  on,  the  lines  closed  in  on  the 
diminishing  numbers  of  the  Christians,  until  the  fight 
thickened  around  a  slight  eminence  on  which  the 
cross  was  upheld  in  the  center  of  the  Christian  host. 
Geoffrey  of  Lusignan,  the  gallant  brother  of  the 
king  (the  one  who  had  laughed  gaily  when  told  of 
Guy's  elevation  to  the  throne,  and  said :  "  What,  make 
Guy  a  king !  If  they  only  knew  me  they  would  make 
a  god  of  me ! ")  Geoffrey,  and  Raymond,  and  Re- 
naud  of  Sidon,  and  other  knights,  still  kept  other 
parts  of  the  field.  Whether  Guy  was  captured  or 
slain  no  one  cared.  The  cross  was  once  more  the 
object  of  their  dying  devotion,  and  around  the  cross 
thousands  poured  out  their  lives,  until  the  last  man 
fell,  and  the  Saracen  seized  the  talisman.  Who  that 
last  man  was  we  can  not  tell,  may  never  know,  unless, 
perhaps,  his  last  utterances  be  kept  in  the  golden 
vials  of  the  elders.  Whoever  he  was,  he  is  worthy  to 
be  looked  at  for  an  instant,  standing  in  blood  and 


114  THE   CROSS  IS  LOST. 

mire  over  the  holy  wood,  crushing,  with  mace  and 
battle-axe,  the  crowding  heads  of  the  infidels.  He 
was  the  last  of  millions  to  die  for  that  blind  old  faith 
and  he  was  a  worthy  type  of  the  innumerable  host 
that  had  gone  before  him.  Never  after  were  such 
men  known  among  the  sons  of  Adam. 

So  on  the  fifth  day  of  July,  1 187,  the  cross  was 
lost  on  the  field  of  Hattin.  It  was  never  again  in  the 
possession  of  Christians.  The  Saracens  rejoiced  great- 
ly over  the  splendor  of  the  gold  and  jewels  which 
encased  it,  and  Saladin  was  wise  enough  to  fear 
that  in  the  hands  of  his  enemies  the  old  wood  might 
be  worth  more  than  treasures  of  gold,  and  carefully 
kept  it. 

Very  soon  after,  an  attempt  was  made  by  the  Chris- 
tians to  cast  discredit  on  the  wood  in  the  possession 
of  the  Saracens.  A  Knight  Templar  declared  to 
Henry  of  Champagne  that  during  the  battle  he  had 
buried  the  cross  on  the  field,  and  marked  the  spot. 
Search  was  made,  but  no  cross  was  found.  There  was 
no  reason  to  doubt  its  fate.  A  few  years  later  this 
was  perfectly  settled. 

The  victory  of  Saladin  was  complete.  King,  tem- 
plars, knights,  almost  the  entire  Christian  host,  were 
his  captives.     He  pursued  his  victory  to  the  besieg- 


THE  CROSS  IS  LOST. 


115 


Ing  and  capitulation  of  Jerusalem,  and  thus  put  an 
end  to  the  kingdom  which  Godfrey  had  founded. 

Europe  rang  with  wails  of  agony  when  the  terrible 
news  that  the  cross  was  lost  reached  her  people. 
Richard,  the  stout-hearted,  armed  himself,  and  went 
to  regain  it.  How  the  great  men  of  Europe  throng- 
ed to  the  Holy  Land ;  how  they  fought  with  the 
princely  Saladin ;  how  Richard's  stout  arm  did  val- 
iantly at  Askelon  and  at  Jaffa ;  how  a  truce  was  con- 
cluded with  the  Soldan  for  a  term  of  years — all  this 
is  known.  From  the  repeated  efforts  made  by  Rich- 
ard, between  1190  and  1192,  to  purchase  the  cross 
from  Saladin,  and  his  refusal  of  any  price  for  it,  it  is 
manifest  that  the  latter  possessed  it,  and  regarded  it 
as  of  great  importance  to  keep  the  talisman  of  the 
Christians  in  his  possession.  At  the  siege  of  Acre, 
in  1 190,  the  Sultan  offered  to  give  up  the  cross  as 
part  of  the  terms  agreed  on,  but  the  Christians  failed 
to  fulfill  their  promises,  and  did  not  recover  it.  From 
time  to  time,  in  the  years  1191  and  1 192,  we  hear  of 
it,  as  in  the  possession  of  Saladin,  in  Jerusalem.  Af- 
ter the  truce  was  concluded,  Geoffrey  de  Vinsauf  (in 
the  Itinerary  of  Richard)  states  that  some  of  the 
English  crusaders  who  went  to  Jerusalem  were 
permitted  by  the  Sultan  to  see  and  kiss  the  cross. 


Il6  THE   CROSS  IS  LOST. 

Two  different  bodies  of  pilgrims  thus  saw  it,  the 
Bishop  of  Salisbury  being  of  the  number. 

Then  it  disappeared.  Of  its  fate  no  man  knows 
anything.  History  and  romance  are  suddenly  quiet 
on  the  theme  and  the  True  Cross  became  a  memory. 
A  century  later,  a  patriarch  in  Jerusalem  professed  to 
have  found  it,  but  no  one  seems  to  have  had  faith  in 
his  discovery.  Three  hundred  years  later,  about  the 
time  when  America  was  discovered,  the  Christians  of 
Constantinople  claimed  to  have  the  wood,  and  those 
of  Cyprus  to  possess  the  cross  of  the  Penitent  Thief. 
But  their  claims  were  disputed,  and  soon  forgotten. 
From  that  sad  day  on  the  plain  of  Galilee  there  has 
not  been  in  Christian  hands  a  cross  for  which  there 
was  faith  enough  to  fight,  except  in  wordy  wars,  and 
the  old  wood  which  Helena  found,  and  which  blood 
and  tears  sanctified,  Saladin  destroyed  or  hid,  and  it 
is  doubtless  long  ago  dust  of  the  dust  of  Jerusalem. 

It  became  the  burden  of  story  and  song.  In  lordly 
halls  of  Europe  for  centuries  after  that,  men  bowed 
in  humble  adoration  before  those  fragments  of  the 
wood  which  pilgrims  had  carried  home  from  Holy 
Land.  Many  sad  mourners  found  consolation  before 
them.  Many  a  joyful  girl  clasped  her  arms  around 
the  lover  who  had  sworn  faith  on  such  a  fragment. 


ANOTHER  AGE. 


117 


In  silent  crypts  under  cathedral  piles  many  kings  lay 
in  dust  with  hands  clasped  closely  together  on  jewel- 
ed reliquaires  holding  the  sacred  wood. 

For  centuries,  when  the  hall  fire  blazed  high  in  cas- 
tles where  the  Rhone  rushed  to  the  sea,  and  flashed 
its  light  on  old  armor  that  had  done  brave  duty  in 
the  sacred  wars,  lord  and  lady,  retainers  and  servants, 
sat  or  stood  in  silent  entrancement  while  the  minstrel 
swept  his  hand  over  the  harp  and  woke  its  sounds  to 
illustrate  brave  deeds  done  in  Holy  Land  for  Holy 
Cross.  Nearly  seven  hundred  years  have  elapsed 
since  the  battle  of  Hattin  was  fought  on  the  plain  of 
Galilee,  and  the  wood,  which  had  been  such  a  power 
in  the  world,  has  passed  forever  out  of  the  wars  and 
councils  of  men.  And  the  ages  have  changed,  and 
men  have  changed,  and  Islam,  the  religion  of  Mo- 
hammed, has  for  fifty  years  past  been  propagated  by 
the  swords  of  the  people,  who  for  that  seven  hundred 
years  have  been  praying  daily  to  be  delivered  from  it. 


XIV.  ■ 

CU  I     BONO? 

I  VENTURE  to  hope  that  what  has  been  written 
will  serve  to  show  the  historical  importance  of  the 
wood  of  the  cross. 

And  if  any  one  ask,  What  is  the  good  of  this  story 
now  ?  it  would  be  sufficient  answer  to  say  that  no 
history  could  be  more  valuable  as  history. 

But  there  is  other  good  to  be  derived  from  an  un- 
prejudiced examination  of  the  faith  and  works  of  the 
men  of  those  old  ages. 

We  will  not  stop  now  to  discuss,  what  perhaps  we 
can  never  know,  whether  in  those  times,  as  compared 
with  our  times,  the  sum  of  human  happiness  was 
greater  or  less,  or  whether  a  larger  or  smaller  propor- 
tion of  men,  calling  themselves  Christian,  prevailed 
to  reach  the  desired  rest. 

The  debt  which  we  owe  to  the  "  dark  ages,"  in  the 
careful  preservation  from  oblivion  of  a  vast  portion 
of  ancient  literature,  is  abundantly  acknowledged. 
Not  so  fully,  however,  is  the  debt  recognized  which 
we  owe  to  the  men  before  the  Reformation  for  much 

(ii8) 


THE  DARK  AGES. 


119 


of  our  religious  instruction.  There  were  a  great 
many  good  men  and  women  in  those  times,  and  their 
influence  was  felt  in  and  after  the  Reformation. 
There  is  not  space  here  to  enter  fully  into  this  sub- 
ject ;  but  I  think  a  single  illustration  will  be  inter 
esting,  especially  as  it  is  one  not  hitherto  brought  to 
public  notice. 

All  intelligent  readers  are  aware  of  the  great  value 
of  picture -illustration.  I  think  it  may  be  safely 
affirmed  that  all  who  are  taught  Bible  history  in 
childhood  derive  more  lasting  impressions  from  pic- 
tures than  from  reading.  The  influence  exerted  by 
a  picture  which  is  widely  circulated,  is  ten-fold  that 
of  the  ablest  commentator. 

Immediately  after  the  invention  of  printing  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  the  Bible  was  published  in  various 
languages  and  dialects  of  Europe,  and  as  the  inven- 
tion of  wood  engraving  had  preceded  that  of  printing 
only  a  short  time,  the  two  arts  went  hand  in  hand. 
The  art  of  wood  engraving  was  apparently  due  to  the 
desire  of  the  monks  and  priests  to  accompany  relig- 
ious instruction  with  illustration.  And  here  comes 
in  one  of  the  most  interesting  facts  in  the  history  of 
illustration  ;  that  is,  the  history  of  illustrating  pub- 
lished thought  by  accompanying  pictures. 


120  BIBLE  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

In  Cologne,  between  the  years  1470  and  1475,  was 
published  a  Bible  (which,  as  well  as  most  of  the  others 
to  which  I  shall  refer,  I  have  before  me  now). 

This  Bible,  a  large  folio,  in  the  dialect  of  Cologne, 
was  thoroughly  illustrated  with  large  wood-cuts,  the 
work  of  an  unknown  artist,  but  one  whose  power  was 
great  for  the  time,  although  his  pictures  are  in  that 
quaint  old  style  which  characterized  the  early  period 
until  Durer.  This  old  artist  worked,  I  doubt  not,  in 
that  pious  spirit  which  sanctified  so  much  of  the  art 
of  that  and  the  next  century.  He  must  have  been 
imbued  with  all  the  peculiar  faith  which  the  history  of 
the  cross  indicates ;  and,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying^ 
he  exerted  a  wider  influence  on  the  entire  European 
world  and  our  own  times,  by  some  of  his  queer  old 
pictures,  than  any  other  man  who  has  in  any  age 
attempted  to  illustrate  the  Bible.  The  evidence  of 
this  is  very  plain,  and  will,  I  am  aware,  be  a  surprise 
to  many  who  have  some  familiarity  with  the  subject. 
When  Koburger  published  his  great  illustrated  Ger- 
man Bible  in  Nuremberg  in  1483,  he  obtained  from 
Cologne  the  wood-blocks  of  this  old  artist  and  used 
them.  In  Holland,  when  the  famous  Halberstadt 
Bible  was  published  in  1520-23,  they  secured  these 
same  cuts  and  used  them  for  that  edition.     I  do  not 


BIBLE  It  L  US  TRA  TIONS.  \  2 1 

know  what  other  service  the  original  blocks  per- 
formed, but  my  own  library  shows  thus  much  of  their 
influence  in  Germany  and  the  Netherlands.  But  this 
was  only  a  beginning  of  the  teachings  of  this  old 
artist.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth  century 
illustrated  Bibles  were  published  in  Venice,  and  the 
Italian  artists,  feeling  the  simple  power  of  this  Co- 
logne artist,  reproduced  his  designs,  and  they  re- 
mained always  after  that  the  "  stock  designs,"  if  I 
may  be  pardoned  the  expression,  which  were  used  by 
publishers  of  Bibles  in  Italy,  intermingled  with  other 
original  work. 

Early  in  the  sixteenth  century,  Lyons,  in  France, 
became  the  chief  place  of  publication  of  illustrated 
Bibles.  It  is  probable  that  a  Venice  printer,  remov- 
ing to  Lyons,  carried  with  him  the  wood-blocks 
which  had  been  used  in  Venice,  and  thus  introduced 
the  designs  to  Lyons  printers.  New  artists  exe- 
cuted new  pictures,  but  still  many  of  the  Cologne 
designs  remained  favorites.  Edition  after  edition  of 
the  Bible  appeared  with  them.  They  were  varied  in 
execution,  slightly  altered  in  accessories,  but  the  de- 
sign remained  the  same.  They  appear  in  many 
Lyons  Bibles,  down  to  1540.  In  1521,  a  Bible  pub- 
lished by  Sacon   for  Koburger,  contained  many  of 


f  2  2  BIBL  E  ILL  US  TRA  T10N3. 

them,  redrawn  with  great  skill,  but  with  identical 
composition,  probably  by  Hans  Springinklee ;  and 
from  this  Bible  many  were  copied,  some  with,  some 
without  improvement,  in  the  famous  Icones  Vetcris 
Testamenti,  first  published  in  1538,  which  are  com- 
monly attributed  to  Hans  Holbein,  but  which  are 
certainly  not  by  him,  unless  he  was  a  mere  copyist ;  for 
a  large  proportion  of  \\\q  Icones  are  mere  copies  of 
pictures  which  had  appeared  in  very  many  Bibles  in 
many  countries,  before  Holbein  was  born,  and  long 
before  the  publication  of  the  first  edition  of  the 
Icones.  Nor  was  the  end  of  the  old  Cologne  artist's 
influence  here.  The  Lyons  Bibles  gave  the  material 
for  illustration  to  a  long  series  of  French  Bibles. 
Froschover,  in  Zurich,  published  his  splendid  Bible 
of  1545,  with  the  Ico7ies  and  other  illustrations. 
German  Bibles  used  the  same  designs  of  the  un- 
known Cologne  artist.  Bible  illustrations,  not  in 
Bibles,  but  separate  publications,  continually  ap- 
peared, and  the  same  old  designs  pervaded  the  his- 
tory of  Bible  illustration  down  to  the  present  day. 
I  think  it  perfectly  safe  to  say  that  that  old  Cologne 
artist,  a  man  of  the  sort  that  the  dark  ages  produced, 
has  instructed  millions  of  his  fellow-men  in  Bible  his- 
tory, giving  them  more  fixed  and  permanent  ideas  on 


ANCIENT  CHRISTIANS.  1 23 

the  subject  than  all  the  comiientators  shice  his  day, 
and  sound  orthodox  ideas  too. 

This  illustration  may  suffice  to  show  that  modern 
religious  teaching  and  thinking  owe  something  to  the 
old  times.  But  there  are  more  important  lessons  than 
this  to  be  learned  from  the  study  of  the  history  of 
human  faith  in  the  wood  of  the  cross. 

The  men  who  believed  in  it  were  not  all  fools. 
The  age  in  which  we  live  is  not  in  all  respects  better 
or  brighter  than  the  ages  that  are  past.  I  am  not 
sure  that  the  Christianity  of  the  Church  in  the  fourth 
century  was  any  less  enlightened,  that  it  was  any 
more  superstitious,  than  the  Christianity  of  our  own 
times.  I  am  even  inclined  to  think  that  a  man  might 
believe  in  the  wood  of  the  cross,  love  it,  venerate  it, 
give  his  life  for  it,  and  at  the  same  time  believe  in 
Him  who  died  on  the  cross,  love  Him,  and  be  faithful 
unto  death  in  that  love,  as  well  as  we  who  have  no 
wood  of  cross  to  think  of. 

Nay,  more.  We  live  in  a  cold,  incredulous  age,  in 
which  men,  calling  themselves  Christian,  look  with 
self-righteous  contempt  on  the  Christians  of  what  are 
called  the  dark  ages,  and  thank  God  they  in  these 
days  are  not  like  the  men  of  those  days.  But  the 
Church  and  the  world  might  be  better  if  there  were 
more  such  men  now. 


124  Z06-r  TREASURES. 

The  Protestant  Church  has  suffered  terrible  loss 
because  of  the  idea,  which  is  sedulously  inculcated  by 
many  who  ought  to  know  better,  that  the  modern 
Church,  since  the  reformation,  is  in  some  sort  a  new 
Church,  and  that  all  which  preceded  it  in  Church  his- 
tory, from  apostolic  times,  was  debased,  full  of  error 
and  falsehood,  unworthy  of  study,  and,  if  possible,  to 
be  forgotten.  In  the  cultivation  of  this  notion  the 
entire  body  of  Church  history  is  consigned  to  the 
Greek  and  Roman  Churches  as  a  mass  of  tradition, 
error,  and  fabrication.  We  have  lost  the  lives  of 
many  martyrs,  priceless  treasures  of  example,  the 
noblest  histories  of  human  faith  and  endurance,  and 
lost  them  because  other  Churches  have  called  them 
saints  and  made  them  intercessors.  We  have  lost 
invaluable  pages  of  Church  history  full  of  instruction — 
pages  as  trustworthy  as  those  of  Herodotus  and  Taci- 
tus— because  of  an  insane  idea  that  these  old  histori- 
ans belonged  to  Churches  that  were  repudiated  in  the 
sixteenth  century. 

But  we  have  lost  yet  more.  In  our  rigid  opposi- 
tion to  relics  and  relic-worship,  in  our  laudable  efforts 
to  substitute  spiritual  for  formal  services,  we  have 
lost  a  great  deal  of  the  spirit  of  reverence  for  holy 
things. 


REVERENCE  FOR    THE  DEAD. 


125 


Surely  there  is  something  very  solemn  and  very 
beautiful  in  the  repose  to  which  the  early  Christians 
of  Rome,  the  men,  and  women,  and  children  bap- 
tized by  Peter  and  Paul,  were  carried  when  they 
slept  in  peace.  Eighteen  hundred  years  have  gone 
by,  and  they  rest  in  their  tombs,  and  men  go  now  and 
pray  in  the  little  chapels  among  them,  where  hus- 
bands and  lovers,  wives  and  children  prayed  by  the 
dead  before  and  after  hiding  them  out  of  sight. 

Even  the  Moslems  regard  the  burial-places  of  their 
dead  with  veneration,  and  never  wittingly  disturb 
their  repose.  Stamboul  has  grown  a  thousand  years 
around  the  cemeteries,  shaded  with  dense  masses  of 
cypress  trees. 

We  do  not  so  care  for  our  dead.  I  said  we  had 
lost  reverence  for  holy  things.     The  dead  are  holy. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  point  out  more  than  one  grave- 
yard, where  the  old  folk  and  young  folk  of  genera- 
tions past  were  laid  to  rest  with  many  tears,  where 
the  sound  of  the  wind  through  the  pine-trees  and 
the  long  grass  was  very  musical  and  very  solemn,  so 
that  when  one  who  was  weary  leaned  over  the  fence 
and  looked  on  the  low  mounds,  he  could  think,  not 
unpleasantly,  of  lying  down  there  some  day  himself. 
Over  those  graves  the  blessed  words  of  hope  in  the 


126  REVERENCE  FOR  OLD  CHURCHES. 

resurrection  had  been  said.  Silent,  peaceful  family 
groups  were  there,  fathers  and  sons,  mothers  and 
daughters,  gathered  to  the  dust  that  death  always 
sanctifies.  But  through  one  of  those  acres  of  God's 
earth  a  railway  line  carries  the  rush  of  modern  travel, 
with  shrieks  and  whistles  of  engines,  and  another, 
and  another,  and  another  are  utterly  laid  waste,  such 
dust  as  could  be  found,  carried  away  in  boxes  in 
strange  confusion,  and  warehouses  or  factories  built 
with  their  foundations  in  the  unrecovered  ashes  of 
the  ancestral  dead.  It  is  rank  barbarism  that  does 
all  this  ;  and  it  is  done  because  the  age  lacks  the 
spirit  of  reverence. 

No  man  now  can  look  out  a  "  snug  place  to  lie  " 
with  any  certainty  that  he  will  find  his  bones  again 
when  he  seeks  them.  Surely  the  world  is  large 
enough  to  make  this  barbarism  unnecessary.  It  will 
take  but  a  short  arithmetical  calculation  to  show  how 
very  small  a  portion  of  the  earth's  surface  would  be 
necessary  to  give  all  the  human  race  of  all  the  ages 
such  burial  as  would  leave  each  one  ample  room  to 
rest  undisturbed.     Why,  then,  the  desecration? 

We  have  not  much  reverence  for  old  churches. 
Old  churches  are  holy,  if  but  for  the  memory  of 
prayer.     If  not  on  earth,  there  are  in  heaven  some 


REVERENCE  EOR  ALL  CHURCHES.  t?? 

who  lemember  with  joy  those  old  churches.  How 
many  in  the  city  of  New  York  are  now  occupied  as 
stables,  shops,  factories,  theaters  ?  How  many  in 
other  cities,  and  even  in  villages  ? 

We  have  not  much  reverence  for  any  church,  old 
or  new.  Every  church  is,  or  should  be,  holy.  On 
week-day  or  Sunday,  in  time  of  service  or  at  other 
times,  it  should  be  entered  reverently ;  and  lessons 
of  reverence  taught  here  will  be  practiced  elsewhere. 
The  boy  who  is  taught  to  take  off  his  cap  reverently 
as  he  enters  the  church-door,  and  not  to  put  it  on 
till  he  is  again  in  the  porch,  will  be  a  better  boy,  and 
learn  a  lesson  of  reverence  which  will  accompany 
him  in  other  scenes  of  life.  The  man  or  the  family 
who  think  it  as  disrespectful  to  come  late  to  the  serv- 
ices of  the  church,  without  excuse,  as  to  go  late  to 
a  dinner,  will  be  found  to  practice  courteous  rules  of 
conduct  with  one  another,  and  in  social  life  ;  for  rev- 
erence breeds  courtesy. 

Lack  of  reverence  for  the  place  of  worship  is  the 
underlying  reason  why  so  many  go  to  church  to  see 
and  be  seen,  and  why  the  persons  in  the  church  are 
often  more  the  subject  of  thought  and  observation 
than  the  ceremonies  of  the  church.  And  this  is 
greatly  due  to  a  prevailing  notion  that  reverence  for 


128  REVERENCE  FOR  FORMS. 

the  church  and  its  services  is  formalism,  or  supersti- 
tion. 

In  our  very  proper  desire  to  be  rid  of  that  which  is 
mere  form  in  worship,  and  destitute  of  Hfe  and  spirit, 
too  many  are  sweeping  in  their  denunciation  of  all 
forms.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  form  is  so  es- 
sential to  devotion  that  no  one  has  yet  been  able  to 
divest  himself  of  the  necessity  of  using  more  or  less 
in  acts  of  worship.  The  Friends,  most  rigid  oppo- 
nents of  unmeaning  rites  and  ceremonies,  sit  in 
formal  meetings,  wear  formal  dresses,  and  are  other- 
wise formalists.  Kneeling  in  prayer  is  a  universal 
formality. 

Ordinary  social  life — the  pleasant  relations  of  men 
to  their  fellow-men  —  are  sustained  by  formalities. 
Formal  addresses  in  correspondence,  the  established 
customs  of  intercourse,  hand-taking,  bowing  with 
more  or  less  formality  to  acquaintances,  friends,  la- 
dies or  gentlemen,  the  ordinary  rules  of  social  life, 
the  outward  show  of  respect  to  courts  and  authori- 
ties, all  are  forms,  and  without  more  or  less  of  them 
civilization  could  not  exist.  It  is  needless  to  argue 
from  the  conceded  propriety  of  these  forms,  that 
there  is  no  impropriety  in  a  reverential  observance  of 
more  or  less  formality  in  the  approach  of  man  to 


LITURGIES,  129 

God.  Forms  are  so  necessary  that  liturgical  worship 
is  in  use  by  all  Christians  of  all  denominations  except 
only  the  Friends.  This  is  more  or  less  full,  invariable, 
formal,  and  rubrical  in  different  denominations.  But 
the  most  formal  style  of  liturgical  worship  is  in  use 
in  all  denominations,  where  not  only  the  words  of 
prayer  and  praise  are  printed  for  use,  but  they  are 
arranged  in  rhythmical  order,  with  rhyming  termina- 
tions, are  set  to  musical  notes,  and  sung  aloud  in 
unison  by  the  whole  body  of  worshipers,  sometimes 
led  by  a  choir  and  accompanied  by  musical  instru- 
ments. This  is  the  acme  of  formality  in  worship,  as 
practiced  in  the  old  Hebrew  temple  and  by  the  Chris- 
tian Church  from  a  very  early  period.  The  use  of 
rhyming  passages  was  an  introduction  during  the 
ages  called  dark,  and  was  not  then  common,  but  it 
commended  itself  to  the  taste  of  Protestantism,  and 
to  it  we  owe  the  great  body  of  eloquent,  passionate 
song  in  which  the  Christian  heart  of  our  own  time 
pours  out  its  deepest  and  holiest  emotions. 

This  is  quite  sufficient  reason  for  caution  and  mod- 
eration on  the  part  of  those  who  condemn  liturgical 
worship,  and  who  wonder  at  the  reverence  with  which 
Christians  of  some  names  regard  the  liturgies  and 
formalities  of  their  church  service.  While  Protest- 
ed 


130 


CHURCH  SERVICES. 


ants  differ  in  this  respect  as  to  some  parts  of  formal 
church  service,  I  doubt  whether  there  is  an  English- 
speaking  Protestant  Christian  of  any  name  who  could 
hear,  without  a  shock  of  pain,  a  ribald  parody,  or 
other  ridicule,  of  that  portion  of  all  Protestant  litur- 
gies in  all  the  churches  which  commences  with  the 
words,  "  Rock  of  Ages,  cleft  for  me,"  or  that  other 
passage  which  begins,  "Jesus,  Lover  of  my  Soul." 
I  have  styled  them  passages  from  liturgical  services, 
for  such  they  are.  All  hymns  used  in  public  worship 
are  liturgical  in  every  sense,  and  as  such  we  all  agree 
in  using  them. 

It  is  plain  from  this  that  the  importance  of  rever- 
ence for  some  formalities  in  church  service  is  recog- 
nized by  all  good  people.  There  is  no  real  difference 
of  opinion  about  this,  however  much  people  may 
think  they  differ.  The  danger  is,  that  in  zealous  con- 
demnation of  forms  and  ceremonies,  the  spirit  of 
reverence  may  be  wholly  extinguished.  Who  shall 
decide,  for  his  fellows,  just  how  much  formality  is 
useful  and  suited  to  every  one's  devotional  exercise  ? 
Let  us  be  tolerant,  lest,  from  our  denunciations  of  all 
formalities,  men  argue  that  they  need  not  show  any 
outward  respect  to  God,  or  to  his  ordinances. 

I  am  not  to  be  understood  as  teaching  or  as  oppos- 


RITUALISM. 


131 


ing  what  is  now  called  ritualism.  I  do  not  know 
what  it  is,  and  I  have  never  been  able  to  find  any  one 
who  could  draw  the  line  beyond  which  is  ritualism. 
There  are  practices  and  formalities  in  church  decora- 
tion and  church  worship  which  are  classed  as  ritual^ 
istic,  which  are,  to  my  tastes  and  limited  knowledge, 
very  absurd.  A  great  deal  of  so-called  Ritualistic 
art,  which  is  seen  in  England  and  in  America,  used  in 
church  services  and  symbols,  does  not  assist  some 
worshipers  in  devotional  feeling,  because  they  hap- 
pen to  know  that  instead  of  being  a  reproduction  of 
early  Christian  symbolic  art,  they  are  drawn  out  from 
the  obscurity  and  semi-oblivion  which  should  have 
been  mercifully  left  to  cover  later  periods  of  art  igno- 
rance, and  debasement.  Church  inscriptions  abound 
in  forms  of  the  alphabet  which  were  used  when  most 
men  did  not  know  how  to  read  or  write.  Notably  a 
very  large  portion  of  modern  church  decoration  in  all 
denominations  is  Saracenic  in  origin  and  character, 
and  suggests  to  the  mind  of  the  worshiper  associa- 
tions with  Mohammed  and  his  followers,  or  with  Ali 
and  the  Metawali. 

To  be  a  thorough-going  and  consistent  "  ritualist," 
as  some  understand  the  word,  calls  in  our  day  for  a 
great  deal  more  critical  knowledge  of  the  general  his- 


132 


CHURCH  SERVICES. 


tory  of  art  than  is  imagined,  and  some  symbolic  de- 
vices in  churches  inevitably  provoke  smiles  from  the 
educated,  as  showing  the  errors  of  "  ecclesiologists." 

But  however  absurd  these  errors,  they  do  not  justify 
irreverent  regard  for  the  Church  or  for  the  services  in 
which  they  occur.  Aside  from  these  manifest  blun- 
ders, there  are  forms  in  all  Churches,  of  all  denomi- 
nations, and  in  some  these  forms  are  carried  to  a 
greater  extent  than  in  others ;  but  however  offensive 
to  the  tastes  or  the  judgment  of  some  of  us  these 
may  be,  it  becomes  us  to  be  very  careful  in  judging 
others,  lest  we  be  judged  ourselves. 

For  example :  I  went  back  not  long  ago,  after 
nearly  a  half  century  of  wandering,  to  the  up-country 
village  where  I  was  born,  and  to  that  old  Presbyterian 
church  in  which  I  was  baptized,  where  the  faith  once 
committed  to  the  saints  was,  in  those  days,  kept  by 
noble  old  Scotch  Christians,  elders  of  the  Church, 
giants  in  frame  and  faith,  whose  memory  is  as  pre- 
cious as  the  memory  of  those  of  ancient  time  whom 
they  have  gone  to  join,  and  where,  in  a  new  and 
stately  building,  fitly  decorated  as  the  House  of  God, 
the  same  faith  is  now  preached  and  prayer  goes  up 
as  of  old.  It  was  a  peaceful  summer  Sunday  morn- 
ing, and  on  the  communion  table  before  the  pulpit 


FL  0  WERS  A  KD  A  L  TA  R-  CL  0  THS. 


133 


was  a  vase  of  fresh  and  glorious  flowers,  filling  the 
great  building  with  delicious  perfume,  and  leading 
every  devout  mind  to  the  thought  that  this  was  the 
most  fitting  of  all  decorations  and  offerings  among 
the  simple  forms  of  morning  prayer.  I  know  that 
the  stout  old  elder  on  whose  lap  I  remember  many  a 
time  sitting  in  childhood,  and  the  mighty  Scotch 
divine,  who  was  a  neighboring  pastor,  often  conduct- 
ing the  services  in  that  church,  would  have  had  more 
than  hesitation  in  their  day  in  permitting  that  per- 
fume ;  for  they  would  have  been  unable  to  see  exactly 
the  difference  between  the  odor  of  the  summer  blos- 
soms and  the  sweet  incense  from  a  golden  censer.  I 
am  sure  that  the  venerable  Scotch  pastor,  grand  old 
Christian,  stern  yet  lovely,  a  man  among  men  of  his 
day,  like  Godfrey  among  the  Crusaders,  I  know  that 
he  would  have  thundered  in  his  broadest  Scotch  dia- 
lect, "  You  might  as  well  put  a  gay  cloth  on  the 
table  and  set  candles  on  it  and  call  it  an  altar.'* 

I  am  not  quite  clear  myself,  even  in  these  days  of 
greater  enlightenment,  that  they  were  not  correct,  so 
far  as  this,  that  the  flowers  and  the  altar-cloths,  the 
incense  and  the  candles,  all  originate  in  the  same 
idea.  The  custom  of  using  flowers  for  church  deco- 
ration in  Sunday  services  is  widespread,  and  many 


134  FLOWERS  IN  CHURCHES. 

Churches,  of  various  denominations,  make  provision 
for  it  as  regularly  as  for  the  services.  They  mean 
something  or  mean  nothing.  They  are  not  designed 
merely  for  people  to  look  at.  They  are  beyond  ques- 
tion intended  as  decorative  accompaniments  of  wor- 
ship. We  all  like  the  flowers,  but  we  do  not  all  like 
the  decorative  and  symbolic  altar-cloths  and  vest- 
ments. 

Let  us  not  give  up  the  flowers.  They  are  pure, 
comely,  fitting  parts  of  that  service  of  praise  in  which 
*'  mountains  and  all  hills,  fruitful  trees  and  all  cedars," 
"young  men  and  maidens,  old  men  and  children," 
unite.  Their  use  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  acts  of 
reverence  for  the  house  of  God  and  the  services  of 
the  Church,  and  tends  to  increase  the  affection  and 
respect  of  young  and  old  for  the  Church  and  the 
forms  of  Church  worship. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  judge  others  in  such  matters 
without  condemning  ourselves ;  but  whatever  our 
judgment,  it  is  plain  enough  that  we  all  claim  respect 
for  such  forms  of  religious  worship  as  we  ourselves 
approve  and  practice  ;  and  the  lesson  of  reverence 
which  needs  most  to  be  taught  in  our  times,  would 
be  thoroughly  learned  if,  in  our  judgment  of  our  fel- 
low-Christians, we  put  into  thorough  practical  use 


FORMALITIES. 


135 


the  golden  rule  of  doing  to  others  as  we  would  have 
others  do  to  us. 

He  who  practices  the  formality  of  kneeling  in 
prayer,  should  not  be  so  self-righteous  as  to  criticise 
Daniel  or  any  one  else  for  opening  his  windows  to- 
ward Jerusalem  before  he  kneels. 

Those  errors  of  formalists,  which  are  hindrances  in- 
stead of  helps  to  devotion,  will  not  be  corrected  by 
ridiculing  them.  If  they  are  helps  to  those  who  use 
them,  it  illy  becomes  us,  who  cling  to  our  own  favorite 
formalities,  to  set  ourselves  up  as  their  judges,  especi- 
ally when  in  so  doing  we  encourage  general  irreverence 
for  religious  observances.  If  I  could  persuade  a  Mo- 
hammedan to  substitute  Jesus  Ben-Mariam  for  Mo- 
hammed in  his  prayers,  I  would  be  quite  content  that 
he  should  adhere  to  his  fixed  hours  of  devotion  and 
to  the  ablutions  and  postures  which  to  him  express 
his  sense  of  humility. 

The  men  of  the  early  Christian  ages  are  not  to  be 
despised  because  they  carried  their  spirit  of  reverence 
to  such  an  extent  that  they  assembled  for  prayer  at 
the  graves  of  the  martyrs,  and  turned  their  faces  with 
loving  veneration  toward  a  piece  of  wood  which  they 
believed  to  be  the  cross.  It  is  very  easy  to  ridicule 
their  proneness  to  submit  to  all  sorts  of  impostures. 


136  A  CONTRAST. 

but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  imitate  the  fervency  of  their 
faith  in  Him  who  died  on  the  cross.  The  men  of  the 
middle  ages  are  not  to  be  despised  because  they 
thought  so  much  of  that  wood  that  they  made  long, 
sad  pilgrimages  to  pray  at  its  foot,  and  left  all  to 
fight  and  die  for  it.  It  is  easy  to  sit  at  home  and 
laugh  at  zealots,  but  it  is  not  easy  to  find  men  in  this 
age  of  the  world  ready  to  defend  their  faith,  and  their 
brethren  holding  the  same  faith,  against  the  oppres- 
sions of  the  Turk. 

Let  us  remember  always  that  there  was  no  earthly 
advantage,  no  plunder  of  rich  cities,  for  which  those 
armies  went  to  the  Holy  Land.  They  fought  for  no 
earthly  crown,  but  only  for  the  kingdom  of  Heaven. 
It  may  be  an  instructive  lesson  to  compare  them, 
marching  through  unknown  countries,  through  much 
difficulty,  in  pain,  trouble,  well-nigh  despair,  fighting 
their  way,  battle-axe  in  hand,  to  the  gates  of  Jerusa- 
lem, for  the  love  of  Christ,  as  soldiers  bearing  the 
cross,  with  a  mass  meeting  of  modern  European 
Christians  assembled  in  vociferous  council  to  vote 
that  the  commercial  interests  of  Europe  demand 
the  preservation  of  the  Mohammedan  power  as  a 
barrier  to  the  encroachments  of  Christian  powers 
on   one  another,  and   then  going  to  church  to  pray 


REVERENCE  FOR   THE  CROSS.  137 

in  Latin,  "  Ut  Turcarum  et  hereticorum  conatus  rep 
rimere,  et  ad  nihilum  redigere  digneris ;  "  or  in  plain 
English,  to  be  delivered  from  the  wiles  of  Turks  and 
heretics. 

If  the  old  reverence  for  sacred  things  begat  super- 
stition in  faith,  is  it  not  just  possible  that  the  modern 
want  of  reverence  begets  coldness  to  absolute  frigidity 
in  faith  ?  There  is  a  golden  mean  between  the  two 
extremes,  and  I  am  persuaded  that  a  study  of  such 
histories  as  this  which  I  have  sketched  will  not  lead 
any  one  to  the  superstition,  but  may  help  toward  that 
mean.  If  it  leads  to  reverence  for  the  graves  of  the 
dead,  reverence  for  the  places  of  ancient  and  of 
modern  worship,  reverence  for  the  church,  its  walls, 
its  aisles,  its  services,  its  formalities,  it  will  do 
good. 

This  much  it  may  help  to  teach,  a  greater  rever- 
ence for  the  cross  as  the  symbol  of  faith.  In  this  re- 
spect I  think  there  are  fewer  at  the  present  day  than 
there  were  fifty  years  ago,  who  would  not  agree  with 
me.  It  was  a  great  loss  to  the  Protestant  Church 
when  it  gave  up  the  symbol,  which  from  the  days  of 
the  Apostles  had  been  the  visible  sign  of  the  Chris- 
tian belief.  The  loss  is  now  greatly  repaired.  The 
use  of  the   cross,  on  spires,  in  churches,  and  worn  as 


138 


THE  CROSS  A  SYMBOL. 


a  jewel,  in  gold,  or  pearls,  or  precious  stones,  is  not 
now  denominational.     Ships  that  come  in   from  the 
ocean,  now  see  from  far  off  the  cross  lifted  above  the 
roofs    of  American  cities,  on  churches  of  many  de- 
nominations, but  of  one  faith,  and  know  thereby  that 
these  people  all  call  themselves  by  the  name  first 
used  at  Antioch.     Nor  is  it  now  supposed  when  a 
lady  wears  a  gold  or  jeweled  cross,  that  it  is  worn  as 
an  amulet,  or  with  superstitious  purpose,  but  in  all 
places  it  is  recognized  as  a  simple  acknowledgment 
of  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints.     We  see  in 
churches  of  all  kinds,  on  festival  occasions,  the  cross 
decorated  with  flowers,   the   prominent   adornment. 
When  Christians  sing  such  hymns  as  "  When  I  survey 
the  wondrous  Cross,"  *'  Am  I  a  Soldier  of  the  Cross," 
no  one  imagines  them  idolatrous. 
~    "  But," — I  hear  some  hesitating  reader  say,  a  reader 
who   with    Paul  glories   in   the    cross,   yet    fears   to 
overstep  the  line  between  symbolism  and  idolatry, 
*'  But  those  old   Christians,  Ambrose  and  Augustine 
and    Jerome,    were    so    deluded    that    they    really 
believed  in   that  wood,  and  revered  it  as  the  wood 
of  the  Very  Cross ;  would  you  have  us  in  this  nine- 
teenth   century  of   light  and  grace,  believe  in  such 
relics?" 


GETHSEMANE  OLIVES. 


139 


Frankly,  my  good  reader,  if  what  I  have  written  be 
not  sufficient  answer,  I  do  not  know  how  to  reply  so 
as  to  meet  fully  all  of  your  mind  which  is  in  the  ques- 
tion.    But  I  w^ill  try. 

I  would  encourage  the  preservation  of  localities  of 
great  events,  tombs  of  great  men,  swords  and  person- 
al memorials  of  great,  patriotic  soldiers.  I  have  a 
broken  hour-glass  that  I  have  reason  to  believe  once 
measured  the  thunderous  utterances  of  Luther,  and 
the  mellifluous  accents  of  Melancthon,  in  the  pulpit 
of  the  old  church  at  Wittemberg,  and  I  prize  it  very 
highly.  Curiously  enough,  in  this  age  of  relic-des- 
pisers,  I  have  never  seen  any  one  who  was  not  very 
much  interested  in  looking  at  such  relics  as  this.  In 
my  travels  in  Holy  Land,  I  have  gathered  and  pre- 
served many  flowers  which  grew  in  soil  that  may 
have  been  the  dust  trodden  by  the  holy  feet  that  were 
afterw^ard  pierced  on  the  cross.  Curiously  enough, 
in  this  time  of  relic-despisers,  I  have  never  found 
man  or  woman  to  whom  I  gave  one  of  those  faded 
flowers  who  did  not  treasure  it. 

There  are  some  very  aged  olive  trees  in  the  Garden 

of  Gethsemane.     Many  persons  believe  they  are  more 

-than  eighteen  hundred  years  old.     1   do   not ;  but   I 

think  they  have  seen  many  centuries  of  the  storms 


[40 


REV^ERENCE  FOR  RELICS. 


that  have  passed  over  Jerusalem.  They  do  not  bear 
many  olives,  and  the  small  yield  of  oil,  pressed  care- 
fully by  the  old  Franciscan  guardians,  is  very  pre- 
cious. I  have  a  little  of  that  oil,  poured  into  the 
vial  which  holds  it,  by  the  good  old  Fra  Luigi,  in  the 
little  hut  in  the  corner  of  the  garden,  well-nigh  ex- 
hausting, as  he  did  it,  the  last  drop  remaining  of  that 
year's  yield.  I  like  to  look  at  that  golden  oil,  and 
no  other  of  all  the  olives  or  palms  of  the  world  so 
interests  me. 

I  know  a  man  to  whom,  as  to  you  and  to  me,  it 
has  come  to  lay  in  the  dust  the  beloved  dead ;  and 
to  him  it  is  an  ever  holy  and  pleasant  memory  that 
those  heads  lie  pillowed  on  fragrant  herbs  that  he 
gathered  in  the  garden  of  the  agony. 

Now  I  can  not,  and  will  not  undertake  to  explain 
why  this  is.  But  I  will,  by  your  leave,  ask  you,  my 
reader,  a  question. 

If  you  possessed  a  clearly  verified  fragment  of  that 
wood  which,  in  the  fourth  century,  Helena  found 
under  the  rocky  base  of  Calvary,  that  wood  on  which 
millions  of  men,  and  women,  and  children  gazed, 
through  penitential  tears,  in  the  long  ages,  which  the 
Persian  carried  away  captive,  and  the  Roman  emperor 
brought  back  on  his  own  shoulder,  around  which  the 


A  PLAIN  QUESTION.  I4I 

tide  of  war  surged,  until  Godfrey,  victor,  sword  in 
hand,  pressed  his  lips  upon  it,  refusing  to  be  crowned 
with  gold  in  the  city  where  his  Master  was  crowned 
with  thorns,  that  wood  for  which  all  Christendom 
poured  out  its  blood,  until  the  fearful  day  at  Hattin — 
if  you  had  a  verified,  unquestionable  piece  of  that 
wood,  would  you  burn  it,  to  kindle  your  fire?  And, 
now,  one  question  more.  If  it  were  sure  to  you, 
without  a  doubt,  that  the  red  stain  on  the  fragment 
was  the  blood  of  your  Lord,  would  you  think  any 
more  of  the  wood  than  of  any  other  chip  ?  What 
would  you  do  with  it  ? 

I  do  not  think,  when  we  come  to  compare  minds, 
that  sensible,  civilized  men,  in  the  old  centuries 
or  in  these  times,  differ  very  much  on  this  subject. 
Only  in  those  days,  millions  who  did  not  possess 
such  fragments,  felt  toward  the  wood  enshrined 
in  Jerusalem,  or  captive  among  the  Saracens,  just 
that  emotion  that  you  would  feel,  if  you  held  in 
your  hand  the  wood,  stained  with  that  blood,  one 
drop  of  which  were  enough  for  the  salvation  of  a 
universe. 

When  the  twilight — the  soft  twilight  of  Rome, 
whose  sad  splendor  seems  the  most  fitting  robe  of 
the  old  city — when  that  twilight  makes  the  arches  of 


142  POOR  SINNERS. 

the  Basilica  more  lofty  and  distant,  stretching  up- 
waid  in  the  gloom  until  their  dim  tracery  seems  like 
cloudy  bars  across  a  murky  sky  ;  when  the  pillars 
tower  away  into  unseen  heights  and  the  frescoes  of 
Pinturicchio,  that  tell  the  story  of  Helena  and  the 
finding  of  the  cross,  fade  into  dimness  like  the  history 
they  illustrate,  the  traveler  from  this  cold  country  of 
ours  may  see,  with  wondering  eyes,  a  little  group  of 
pious  women  kneeling  before  the  shrine  of  Santa 
Croce  near  the  chapel  of  Helena,  with  bowed  heads, 
and  lips  musical  because  they  utter  prayers.  These 
are  no  nuns  or  devotees.  They  are  sinners  of  poor 
broken-hearted  Rome — that  once  was  Rome.  They 
have  come  from  the  market,  the  street,  the  villa,  the 
palace.  They  are  rich  and  poor  together,  penitent 
alike,  and  their  tears  make  holy  the  pavement,  as  they 
fondly  believe,  with  woman's  proverbially  trusting 
faith,  that  they  kneel  before  that  fragment  which  yet 
'bears  the  title  of  the  crucified  Nazarene.  I  would  not 
drive  them  away.  Would  you?  I  think  not.  There 
"let  them  kneel,  those  few  sad  women,  in  the  Roman 
twilight — alone — fitting  watchers,  like  those  who 
stood  afar  off  and  gazed  at  Calvary;  fitting  watchers, 
in  these  incredulous  times,  around  the  last  great 
fragment    of  the  wood  which  a  thousand  years   of 


THE  END.  143 

human  faith  and  prayers  and  blood  and  agonies, 
made  worthy  to  be  loved  and  revered,  even  though 
it  be  not  the  wood  of  the  tree  that  bore  its  fruit  on 
Calvary. 


FINIS. 


Date  Due 

A«fr#..-!SS 

JTW^ 

.-,^„..-,,^ 

• 

1 

f 

